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THE 



IMPEiNBINa CRISIS 



OF 



THE SOUTH: 

HOW TO MEET IT 

BY 

HINTON KOWAN HELPEK, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



Countrymen I I sue for simple justice at your hauJs, 

Naught else I ask, nor less will have , 

Act right, therefore, and yield my claim. 

Or, by the great God that made all things, 

I'll fight, till from ray bones ray flesh be huckM \—Shiik-i;>earc. 

The liberal devipcth liberal things, 

And by liberal things shall he stand.— /««»"> 



HUNDREDTH THOUSAND. 

NEW-YORK : 
A. B. BURDICK, No. 145 NASSAU STREET. 

18G0. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by " 
HINTON ROWAN HELPER, 
In tV. Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States foi the 
Southern District of New York. 



By Transfer 

D. C. Public Library 

JAN 9 r 1934 



w 



IRANSFERRfiD FROM W&LIG LIBRARY 



HENRY M, WII^LIS, 

OF CALIFORNIA, 

FORMERLY OF MARYLAND., 

WOODFORD O. HOLM AN, 

OF OREGON, 

FORMERLY OF KENTUCKY, 

MATTHEW K. SMITH, 

OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY, 

FORMERLY OF VIRGINIA, 
AND TO THE 

NON-SLAVEIIOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH 

GENERALLY, 

WM ETHER AT HOME OR ABROAD 

THIS WORK IS MOST CORDIALLY 

DEDICATED 

BY THEIR 

SINCERE FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN, 

THE AUTHOK. 



1 ' 



PREFACE. 



If my countrymen, particularly my countrymen ol the South, 
ft ill more particularly those of them who are non-slaveholders, 
shall peruse this work, they will learn that no narrow and partial 
doctrines of political or social economy, no prejudices of early 
education have induced me to write it. If, in any part of it, I 
have actually deflected from the tone of true patriotism and na- 
tionality, T am unable to perceive the fault. What I have com- 
mitted to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled 
convictions of raj' heart. 

In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast 
unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special 
friendliness or sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my sub- 
ject more particularly with reference to its economic aspects as re- 
gards the whites— not with reference, except in a very slight de- 
gree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latter side 
jf the question, Northern writers have already done full and 
timely justice. The genius of the North has also most ably and 
eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels. Yankee 
wives have written the most popular anti-slavery literature of 



VI PREFACE. 

the day. Against this I have nothing to say ; it is all well 
enough for women to give the fictions of slavery ; men should 
give the facts. 

I trust that ray friends and fellow- citizens of the South will 
read this book — nay, proud as any Southerner though I am, I 
entreat, I beg of them to do so. And as the work, considered 
with reference to its author's nativity, is a novelty — the South 
being my birth-place and my home, and my ancestry having resi- 
ded there for more than a century — so I indulge the hope that 
its reception by my fellow-Southrons will also be novel ; that is 
to say, that they will receive it, as it is offered, in a reasonable 
and friendly spirit, and that they will read it and reflect upon it 
as an honest and faithful endeavor to treat a subject of enormous 
import, without rancor or prejudice, by one who naturally comes 
within the pale of their own sympathies. 

An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the 
South to an honorable and powerful position among the enlight- 
ened quarters of the globe, has been the great leading principle 
that has actuated me in the preparation of the present volume ; 
and so well convinced am I that the plan which I have proposed 
is the only really practical one for achieving the desired end, that 
I earnestly hope to see it prosecuted with energy and zeal, until 
the Flag of Freedom shall wave triumphantly alike over the val- 
leys jf Virginia and the mounds of Mississipp . 

H. R. H. 

Jvh , 1857. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.. li 

Progress and Prosperity of the North — Inertness and Imbe- 
cility of the South — The True Cause and the Remedy — 
Quantity and Value of the Agricultural Products of the 
two Sections — Important Statistics — Wealth, Revenue, 
and Exdenditure of the several States — Sterling Extracts 
and General Remarks on Free and Slave Labor — The Im- 
mediate Abolition of Slavery the True Policy of the South. 

CHAPTER II. 

HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 12.'1 

\ alue of Lands in the Free and in the Slave States — A few 
Plain Words addressed to Slaveholders — The Old Home 
stead — Area and Population of the several States, of the 
Territories, and of the District of Columbia — Number of 
Slaveholders in the United States — Abstract of the Au- 
thor's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery — Official Power 
and Despotism of the Oligarchy — Mal-treatment of the , 
Non-slaveholding Whites — Liberal Slaveholders, and what 
may be expected of them — Slave-driving Democrats — Class- 
ification of Votes Polled at the Five Points Precinct in 
1856— Parts played by the Republicans, Whigs, Democrats, 
and Know-Nothings during the last Presidential Cam- 
paign — How and why Slavery should be Abolished with- 
out direct Compensation to the Masters— The American 
Colonization Society — Emigration to Liberia— Ultimatum 
of the Non-slaveholding Whites. 

CHAPTER in. 

SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 188 

What the Fathers of the Republic thought of Slavery — 
Opinions of Washington — Jefferson — Madison — Monroe — 
Henry — Randolph — Clay — Benton — Mason — McDowell — 
Iredell — Pinkney — Leigh — Marshall — Boiling — Chandler 
— Summers — Preston — Fremont — Blair — Maury — Birney. 
Delaware — McLane. Maryland — Martin. Virginia — Bill of 



VIU CONTENTS. 

PA3I 

Rights. North Carolina — Mecklenburg DeclaratioL of In- 
dependence— Judge RuflBn. South Carolina— Extracts from 
the Writings of some of her more Sensible Sons. Georgia 
— Gen. Oglethorpe — Darien Resolutions. 

CIL\ PTER IV. 

HURTHERN TESTIMONY 235 

opinions of Franklin — Hamilton — Jay — Adams — "Webster 
-Clinton— Warren— Complimentary Allusions to Garrison, 
Greeley, Seward, Sumner, and others. 

CHAPTER V. 

'ESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 245 

The Voice of England — Opinions of Mansfield — Locke — 
Pitt — Fox — Shakspeare — Cowper — Milton — Johnson — 
Price — B<4ckstone — Coke — Hampden — Harrington — For- 
tescue — It^rougham — The Voice of Ireland — Opinions of 
Burke — Curran — Extract from the Dublin University Mag- 
azine for December, 1856 — The Voice of Scotland — Opin- 
ions of Bcattie— Miller — Macknight — The Voice of France 
— Opinions of Lafayette — Montesquieu — Louis X — Buffon 
— Rousseau — Brissot — The Voice of Germany — Opinions 
of Grotius — Goethe — Luther — Extract from the Letter of 
a living German writer to his Friends in this Country — 
The Voice of Italy — Opinions of Cicero — Lactantius — Leo 
X — The Voice of Greece — Opinions of Socrates — Aristotle 
— Polybius — Plato. 

CHAPTER VL 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES 258 

Introductory Remarks—Presbyterian Testimony — Albert 
Barnes — Thomas Scott — General Assembly in 1818 — Sy- 
nod of Kentucky — Episcopal Testimony — Bishop Horsley 
— Bishop Butler — Bishop Porteus — John Jay — Anti- 
slavery Churchman — Baptist Testimony — Rev. Mr. Bris- 
bane, of South Carolina— Fiancis Wayland — Abraham 
Booth — Baptists of Virginia in 1789 — Methodist Testi- 
mony — John Wesley — Adam Clarke — Extrxcts from the 
Discipline for 1784. '85 and '97 — Catholic Testimony — 
Pope Gregory XVI — Pope Leo X — The Abbe Raynal — 
Henry Kemp. 



CONTENTS. IX 



CHAPTER VIT. 

BIBLE TESTIMONY 275 

The Bible an Anti-SIavcry Text-book — Selected Precepts 
and Sayings of the Old Testament — Selected Precepts and 
Sayings of the New Testament — Irrefragability of the Ar- 
guments here and elsewhere introduced against Slavery. 

CHAPTER VIIT. 

FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 281 

Opening Remarks — General Statistics of the Free and of 
the Slave States — Tonnage, Exports, and Imports — Pro- 
ducts of Manufactures — Miles of Canals and Railroads in 
Operation — Public Schools — Libraries other than Private 
— Newspapers and Periodicals — Illiterate White Adults — 
— National Political Power of the two Sections — Popular 
Vote for President in 1856 — Patents Issued on New In- 
ventions — Value of Church Property — Acts of Benevo- 
lence — Contributions for the Bible Cause, Tract Cause, 
Missionary Cause, and Colonization Cause — Table ol 
deaths in the several States in 1850— Number of Free 
White Male Persons over fifteen years of age engaged in 
Agriculture or other out-door Labor in the Slave States — 
Falsity of the Assertion that White Men cannot cultivate 
Southern Soil — White Female Agriculturists in North 
CarDlina — Number of Natives of the Slave States in the 
Free States, and of Natives of the Free States in the Slave 
States — Value of the Slaves at !$400 per head — List of 
Presidents of the United States — Judges of the Supreme 
Court — Secretaries of State — Presidents of the Senate — 
Speakers of the House — Postmasters General — Secretaries 
of the Interior — Secretaries of the Treasur}'- — Secretaries 
of War — Secretaries of the Navy — Result of the Presiden- 
tial Elections in the United States from 179G to 185G — Aid 
for Kansas — Contributions for the Sufferers in Ports- 
mouth, Va., during the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 
the Summer of 1855 — Congressional Representation — Cus- 
tom House Receipts-When the Old States were Settled and 
the New Admitted into the Union — First European Set- 
tlements in America — Freedom and Slavery at the Fair 
— What Fre'3dom Did — What Slavery Did — Average Value 
per Acre of Lands in the States of New York and North 
Carolina. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PAOI 

COlfMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE 331 

J^'^'ea for a great Southern Commercial City — Impoitancc of 
Cities in General — Letters from the Mayors of sundry 
American Cities, North and South — Wealth and Popula- 
tion of New-York, Baltimore. Philadelphia, New-Orleans, 
P>(iston.St. Louis, Brookh'n, Charleston, Cincinnati, Louis- 
ville, Chicajro, Richmond, Providence, Norfolk, Buffalo, 
Savannah, New-Bedford, AV^ilinington — Wealth Concen- 
trated at Commercial Points — Boston and its Business — 
Progressive Growth of Cities — A Fleet of Merchantmen — 
Commerce of Norfolk — Baltimore, Past, Present, and Fu- 
ture — Lisignificance of Southern Commerce — Knslavement 
of Slaveholders to the Products of Northern Industr}^ — 
Almost Utter Lack of Patrioitsm in Southern Merchants 
and Slaveholders. 

CHAPTER X. 

FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE 360 

Why this Work was not Published in Baltimore — Legisla- 
tive Acts Against Slavery — Testimony of a West India 
Planter to the Advantages of Free over Slave Labor — The 
True Friends of the South — Slavery Thoughtful — Signs of 
Contrition — Progress of Freedom in the South — Anti- 
slavery Extracts from Southern Journals — A Rig;ht Feel- 
ing in the Right Quarter — The Illiterate Poor Whites of 
the South. 

CHAPTER XL 

SOUTHERN LITERATURE 383 

Instances of Protracted Literary Labor — Comparative In- 
significance of Periodical and General Literature in the 
Southern States— The New-York Tribune— Southern Syb^- 
tem of Publishing — Book-making in America — The Busi- 
ness of the Messrs. Harper — Southern Journals Struggling 
for Existence — Paucity of Southern Authors — Proportion 
of White Adults, over Twenty Years of Age, in each State, 
who cannot Read and Write, to .he Whole White Popu- 
lation — Southern Authors Compelled to Seek Northern 
Publishers — Conclusion. 



CHAPTER I 

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE ST.vTiS. 

It is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an 
elaborate ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities 
of difference, mental, moral, and physical, in the great 
family of man. Neither is it our design to launch into a 
philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of 
light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional 
evidence of the fact, that as a general rule, the rays of 
the sun are more fructifying and congenial than the shades 
of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing a formal 
treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction be- 
tween right and wrong, to point out the propriety of mor- 
ality and its advantages over immorality, nor to waste 
time in pressing a universally admitted truism — that vir- 
tue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no 
argumentative demonstration. 

What we mean to do is simply this : to take a survey 
of the relative, position and importance of the several 
states of this confederacy, from the adoption of the na- 
tional compact ; and when, of two sections of the country 
starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural 
advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost 
unexampled power and eminence, and the other sinking 



12 COMPARISON BETWiEX TEL 

into a state of comparative imbecility and obscurity, it ia 
our determination to trace out the causes which have led 
to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the 
latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors 
to utterly extirpate whatever opposes the progress and 
prosperity of any portion of the union. 

This survey we have already made ; we have also in- 
stituted an impartial comparison between the cardinal 
sections of the country, north, south, east, and west ; and 
as a true hearted southerner, whose ancestors have resided 
*in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, 
and as one who would rather have his native clime excel 
than be excelled, we feel constrained to confess that we 
are deeply abashed and chagrined at the disclosures of 
the comparison thus instituted. At the time of the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, in 1*189, we commenced an even 
race with the North. All things considered, if either the 
North or the South had the advantage, it was the latter. 
In proof of t?iis, let us introduce a few statistics, begin- 
ning with the states of 

NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA. 

In 1*190, when the fijst census was taken, New York 
contained 340,120 inhabitants ; at the same time the pop- 
ulation of Virginia was 748,308, being more than twice 
the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward, as 
we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a popu- 
lation of 3,097,394 ; while that of Virginia was only 
1,421,661, being less than half the number of New York ! 



FREE AND THE SLAVE Sl'ATES. 13 

In 1*191, the exports of New York amounted to $2_505,- 
465 ; the exports of Virginia amounted to $3,130,865. In 
1852, the exports of New York amounted to $87,484,456 ; 
the exports of Virginia, during the same year, amounted 
to only $2,724,657. In 1790, the imports of New York 
and Virginia were about equal ; in 1853, the imports of 
New York amounted to the enormous sum of $178,270,- 
999 ; while those of Virginia, for the same period, amount- 
ed to the pitiful sum of only $399,004. In 1850, the pro- 
ducts of manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in 
New York amounted to $237,597,249 ; those of Virginia 
amounted to only $29,705,387. At the taking of the last 
census, the value of real and personal property in Vir- 
ginia, including negroes, was $391,646,438 ; that of New 
York, exclusive of any monetary valuation of human be- 
ings, was $1,080,309,216. 

In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed 
in the City of New-York amounted in valuation to $511,- 
740,491, showing that New- York City alone is worth far 
more than the whole State of Virginia. 

What says one of Virginians own sons ? He still lives ; 
hear him speak. Says Gov. Wise : 

" It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, tc re- 
cur occasionally to the history of the past ; to listen to the 
admonitions of experience, and learn lessons of wisdom 
from the efforts and actions of those who have preceded 
us in the drama of human life The records of former days 
show that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood pre- 
eminently the first commercial State in the Union ; wnen 
her commerce exceeded in amount that of all the Ne\N 



14 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

England States combined ; when the City of Norfoik 
owned n: ore than one hundred trading ships, and her di- 
rect foreign trade exceeded that of the City of New- York, 
now the centre of trade and tlie great emporium of North 
America. At the period of the war of independence, the 
commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of 
New-York." 

The cash value of all the farms, farming implements 
and machinery in Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315 ; the 
value of the same in New- York, in the same year, was 
$576,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of 
the agricultural products and live stock of New-York ex- 
ceed the value of the agricultural products and live stock 
of Virginia. But we will pursue this humiliating compa- 
rison no further. With feelings mingled with indignation 
and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay 
our respects to 

MASSACHUSETTS AND NORTH CAROLINA. 

In 1*190, Massachusetts contained 378,717 inhabitants ; 
in the same year North Carolina contained 393,751 ; in 
1850, the population of Massachusetts was 994,514, all 
freemen ; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039, 
of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area 
of only 7,800 square miles ; the area of North Carolina is 
50,704 square miles, which, though less than Virginia, is 
considerably larger than the State of New-York. Massa- 
chusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston 
and Beaufort, which harbors, with the States that back 



FREK AND THE SLAVE STATES. X5 

'them, are, by nature, possessed of about equal capacities 
aiid advantages for commercial and manufacturing enter- 
prise. Boston has grown to be the second commercial 
city in the Union ; her ships, freighted with the useful and 
unique inventions and manufactures of her ingenious art; 
sans and mechanics, and bearing upon their stalwart arm- 
the majestic flag of our country, glide triumphantly through 
the winds and over the waves of every ocean. She has 
done, and is now doing, great honor to herself, her State 
and the nation, and her name and fame are spoken with 
reverence in tfxC remotest regions of the earth. 

How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose har- 
bor is said to be the safest and most commodious any- 
where to be found on the Atlantic coast south of the har- 
bor of New- York, and but little inferior to that ? Has 
anybody ever heard of her ? Do the masts of her ships 
ever cast a shadow on foreign waters ? Upon what dis- 
tant or benighted shore have her merchants and mariners 
ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of 
civilization and peaceful industry ? What changes worthy 
of note have taken place in the physical features of her 
superficies since *' the evening and the morning were the 
third day ?" But we will make no further attempt to 
draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and 
renowned city of Boston and the obscure, despicable little 
village of Beaufort, which, notwithstanding " the placid 
bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor,^' has no place 
in the annals or records of the country, and has scarcely 
ever been heard of fifty miles from home. 

In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to 



16 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

$16,895,304, and her imports to $41,361,956 ; during Jie 
same time, and indeed during all the time, from the period 
of the formation of the government up to the year 1853, 
inclusive, the exports and imports ot North Carolina were 
so utterly insignificant that we are ashamed to record 
them. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining and 
the mechanic arts in Massachusetts, amounted to $151,- 
137,145 ; those of North Carolina, to only $9,111,245. In 
1856, the products of these industrial pursuits in Massa- 
chusetts had increased to something over $288,000,000, a 
sum more than twice the value of the entire cotton crop 
of all the Southern States I In 1850, the cash value of all 
the farms, farming implements and machinery in Massa- 
chusetts, was $112,285,931 ; the value of the same in 
North Carolina, in the same year, was only $71,823,298. 
In 1850, the value of all the real and personal estate in 
Massachusetts, without recognizing property in man, or 
setting a monetary price on the head of a single citizen, 
white or black, amounted to $573,342,286 ; the value of 
the same in North Carolina, including negroes, amounted 
to only $226,800,472. In 1856, the real and personal 
estate assessed in the City of Boston amounted in valua- 
tion to within a fraction of $250,000,000, showing conclu- 
sively that so far as dollars and cents are concerned, that 
single city could buy the whole State of North Carolina, 
and by right of purchase, if sanctioned by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and by State Constitutions, hold 
her as a province. In 1850, there were in Massachusetts 
1,861 native white and free colored persons over twenty 
years of age who could not read and write ; in the samp 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 17 

year, the samo class of persons in North CaroliLa num- 
bered 80,083 ; while her 288,548 slaves were, by legisla- 
tive enactments, kept in a state of absolute ignorance and 
unconditional subordination. 

Hoping, however, and believing, that a large majority 
of the most respectable and patriotic citizens of North 
Carolina have resolved, or will soon resolve, with unyield- 
ing purpose, to cast aside the great obstacle that impedes 
their progress, and bring into action a new policy which 
will lead them from poverty and ignorance to wealth and 
intellectual greatness, and which will shield them not on- 
ly from the rebukes of their own consciences, but also from 
the just reproaches of the civilized world, we will, for the 
;>resent, in deference to their feelings, forbear the furthei 
enumeration of these degrading disparities, and turn our 
attention to 

PENNSYLVANIA AND SOUTH CAROLLVA. 

An old gentleman, now residing in Charleston, tcid us, 
but a few months since, that he had a distinct recollection 
of the time when Charleston imported foreign fabrics for 
the Philadelphia trade, and when, on a certain occasion, 
his mother went into a store on Market^street to select a 
silk dress for herself, the merchant, unable to please her 
fancy, persuaded her to postpone the selection for a few 
days, or until the arrival of a new stock of superb styles 
and fashions which he had recently purchased in the me- 
tropolis of South Carolina. This was all very proper 
Charleston had a spacious harbor, a central position, and 



18 COMPAKISOX BETWEEN TKK 

a mild climate ; and from priority of settlement taid busi- 
ness connections, to say nothing of other advantages, she 
enjoyed greater facilities for commercial transactions than 
Philadelphia. She had a right to get custom wherever 
she could find it, and in securing so valuable a customer 
as the Quaker City, she exhibited no small degi'ee of laud- 
able enterprise. But why did she not maintain her supre- 
macy ? If the answer to this query is not already in the 
reader^s mind, it will suggest itself before he peruses the 
whole of this work. For the present, sufiSce it to say, 
that the cause of her shameful insignificance and decline 
is essentially the same that has thrown every other South- 
ern city and State in the rear of progress, and rendered 
them tributary, in a commercial and manufacturing point 
of view, almost entirely tributary, to the more sagacious 
and enterprising States and cities of the North. 

A most unfortunate day was that for the Palmetto State, 
and indeed for the whole South, when the course of trade 
was changed, and she found herself the retailer of foreign 
and domestic goods, imported and vended by wholesale 
merchants at the North. Philadelphia ladies no longer 
look to the South for late fashions, and fine silks and 
satins ; no Quaker dame now wears drab apparel of 
Charleston importation. Like all other niggervilles in our 
disreputable part of the confederacy, the commercial em- 
porium of South Carolina is sick and impoverished ; her 
silver cord has been loosed ; her golden bowl has been 
broken ; and her unhappy people, without proper or profit* 
able employment, poor in pocket, and few in number, go 
mourning or Kxafiiig about the streets. Her annual im- 



FREE AND THE S .AVE STATES. 19 

portations are actually less now than thcj were a century 
nsi'o, when South Carolina was the secc.nd commercial 
[province on the continent, Virginia being the first. 

In 1760, as we learn from Mr. Benton's " Thirty Years' 
View," the foreign imports into Charleston were $2,602,- 
000 ; in 1855, they amounted to only $1,750,000 I In 
1854, the imports into Philadelphia, which, in foreign 
trade, ranks at present but fourth among the commercial 
cities of the union, were $21,963,021. In 1850, the pro- 
ducts of manufactures, mining, and the mechanic arts, ir 
Pennsylvania, amounted to $155,044,910 ; the products of 
the same in South Carolina, amounted to only $7,063,513. 

As shown by the census report of 1850, which was pre- 
pared under the superintendence of a native of South Car- 
olina, who certainly will not be suspected of injustice to 
his own section of the country, the Southern states, the 
cash value of all the farms, farming implements, and ma- 
chinery in Pennsylvania, was $422,508,640 ; the value of 
the same in South Carolina, in the same year, was only 
$86,518,038. F^om a compendium of the same census, we 
learn that the value of all the real and personal property 
in Pennsylvania, actual property, no slaves, amounted to 
$729,144,998 ; the value of the same in South Carolina, 
including the estimated — we were about to say fictitious 
— value of 384,925 negroes, amounted to only $288,257,- 
694, We have not been able to obtain the figures neces- 
sary to show the exact value of the real and personal es- 
tate in Philadelphia, but the amount is estimated to be not 
less than $300,000,000 ; and as, in 1850, there were 408,- 
762 free inhabitants in the single city of Ph'ladclpbia, 



20 COMPAKISON BETWEEN THE 

against 283,544 of the same class, in the whole state of 
South Carolina, it is quite evident that the former is more 
powerful than the latter, and far ahead of her in all the 
elements of genuine and permanent superiority. In Penn- 
sylvania, in 1850, the annual income of public schools 
amounted to $1,348,249 ; the same in South Carolina, in 
the same year, amounted to only $200,600 ; in the former 
state there were 393 libraries other than private, in the 
latter only 26 ; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and pe- 
riodicals were published, circulating 84,898,672 copies an- 
nually ; in South Carolina only 46 newspapers and peri* 
odicals were published, circulating but 1,145,930 copies 
per annum. 

The incontrovertible facts we have thus far presented 
are, we think, amply sufficient, both in number and mag- 
nitude, to bring conviction to the mind of every candid 
reader, that there is something wrong, socially, politically 
and morally wrong, in the policy under which the South 
has so long loitered and languished. Else, how is it that 
the North, under the operations of a policy directly the 
opposite of ours, has surpassed us in almost everything 
great and good, and left us standing before the world, an 
object of merited reprehension and derision ? 

For one, we are heartily ashamed of the inexcusable 
weakness, inertia and dilapidation everywhere so manifest 
throughout our native section ; but the blame properly 
attaches itself to an usurping minority of the people, and 
we are determined that it shall rest where it belongs. 
More on this subject, however, after a brief but general 
survey of the inequalities and disparities that exist between 



FREE AN'D THE SI-AVE sTaTES, 21 

those two grand divisions of the country, ^hich, witl-out 
reference to the situation that any part of their territory 
bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more 
familiarly known by the appropriate appellation of 

THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 

It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner 
that we are compelled to go to the North for almost every 
article of utility and adornment, from matches, shoepegs 
and paintings up to cotton-mills, steamships and statuary ; 
that we have no foreign trade, no princely merchants, nor 
respectable artists ; that, in comparison with the free 
states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts 
and inventions of the age ; that, for want of profitable 
eniploymen't at home, large numbers of our native popula- 
tion find themselves necessitated to emigrate to the West, 
whilst the free states retain not only the larger proportion 
of those born within their own limits, but induce, annually, 
hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain 
amongst them ; that almost everything produced at the 
North meets with ready sale, while, at the same time, 
there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the 
productions of Southern industry ; that, owing to the 
absence of a proper system of business amongst us, the 
North becomes, in one way or another, the proprietor and 
dispenser of all our floating wealth, and that we are do- 
pendent on Northern capitalists for the means necessary 
to bulla our railroads, canals and other public improve- 
ments ; tha^t if we want to visit a foreign country, ev(;u 



22 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

though it may lie directly South of us, we find no convenient 
way of getting there except by taking passage through a 
Northern port ; and that nearly all the profits arising from 
the exchange of commodities, from insurance and shipping 
offices, and from the thousand and one industrial pursuits 
of the country, accrue to the North, and are there invested 
in the erection of those magnificent cities and stupendous 
works of art which dazzle the eyes of the South, and attest 
the superiority of free institutions ! 

The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they 
must and do make two pilgrimages per annum — one in tho 
spring and one in the fall. All our commercial, mechanical, 
manufactural, and literary supplies come from there. We 
want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the 
North ; we want pens, ink, paper, wafers and envelopes, 
and we go to the North ; we want shoes, hats, handker- 
chiefs, umbrellas and pocket knives, and we go to the 
North ; we want furniture, crockery, glassware and pianos, 
and we go to the North ; we want toys, primers, school 
books, fashionable apparel, machinery, medicines, tomb- 
stones, and a thousand other things, and we go to the 
North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in cir- 
culation at home, by patronizing our own mechanics, man- 
ufacturers, and laborers, we send it all away to the North, 
and there it remains ; it never falls into our hands again. 

In one way or another we are more or less subservient 
to the North every day of our lives. In infancy we are 
swaddled in Northern muslin ; in childhood we are hu- 
mored with Northern gewgaws ; in youth we are instruct- 
ed out of Nor'^hern books ; at the age of maturity we sow 



f-REE AND THE SIAVE STATES. 23 

our " wild oats" on Northern soil ; in middle-life we ex- 
haust our wealth, energies and talents in the dishonorable 
vocation of entailing our dependence on our ihildren and 
on our children's children, and, to the neglect of our own 
interests and the interests of those around us, in giving 
aid and succor to every department of Northern power ; 
in the decline of life w.o remedy our eye-sight with Nor- 
thren spectacles, and support our infirmities with Northern 
canes ; in old age we are drugged with Northern pliysic ; 
and, finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded 
in Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to 
the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Nor- 
thern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab I 

But it can hardly be necessary to say more in illustra- 
tion of this unmanly and unnational dependence, which is 
so glaring that it cannot fail to be apparent to even the 
most careless and superficial observer. All the world 
sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, 
manufactural, financial, and literary point of view, we are 
as helpless as babes ; that, in comparison with the Free 
States, our agricultural resources have been greatly ex 
aggerated, misunderstood and mismanaged ; and that, in 
stead of cultivating among ourselves a wise policy of mu- 
tual assistance and co-operation with respect to individ 
uals, and of self-reliance with respect to the South at large, 
instead of giving countenance and encouragement to the 
industrial enterprises projected in our midst, and instead 
of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our owi: 
States, cities and towns, we have been spending our sub- 
etauce at the North, and are daily augmenting ai'.d 



24 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

strengthening the very power which now has us so c«)n)» 
pletely under its thumb. 

It thus appears, in view of the preceding- statistical 
facts and arguments, that the South, at one time the su- 
perior of the North in almost all the ennobling pursuits 
;ind conditions of life, has fallen far behind her competitor, 
and now ranks more as the dependency of a mother coun 
try than as the equal confederate of free and independent 
States. Following the order of our task, the next duty 
tliat devolves upon us is to trace out the causes which 
have conspired to bring about this important change, and 
to place on record the reasons, as we understand them, 

WHY THE NORTH HAS SURPASSED THE SOUTH. 

And now that we have come to the very heart and soul 
of our subject, we feel no disposition to mince matters, 
but mean to speak plainly, and to the point, without any 
equivocation, mental reservation, or secret evasion what- 
ever. The son of a venerated parent, who, while he lived, 
was a considerate and merciful slaveholder, a native of 
the South, born and bred in North Carolina, of a family 
whose home has been in the valley of the Yadkin for near- 
ly a century and a half, a Southerner by instinct and by 
all the influences of thought, habits, and kindred, and with 
the desire and fixed purpose to reside permanently within 
the limits of the South, and with the expectation of dying 
there also — we feel that we have the right to expr^^ss our 
opinion, however humble cv unimportant it may be, on any 
and every question that aftocts the public good ; and, sc 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 25 

hnlj> Tis Cri/d, " sink or swim, live or die, survive or poi» 
ish," we are determined to exercise that right with maul v 
firmness, and without fear, favor or affection. 

And now to the point. In our opinion, an opinion which 
has been formed from data obtained by assiduous re- 
searches, and comparisons, from laborious investigation, 
logical reasoning, and earnest reflection, the causes which 
have impeded tlie progress and prosperity of the South, 
which have dwindled our commerce, and other similar 
pursuits, into the most contemptible insignificance ; sunk 
a large majority of our people in galling poverty and ig- 
norance, rendered a small minority conceited and tyran- 
nical, and driven the rest away from their homes ; entailed 
upon us a humiliating dependence on the Free States ; dis- 
graced us in the recesses of our own souls, and brought 
us under reproach in the eyes of all civilized and enlight- 
ened nations — may all be traced to one common source, 
and there find solution in the most hateful and hori ible 
word, that was ever incorporated into the vocabulary of 
human economy — Slai-ery ! 

Ecared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to 
be wrong both in principle and ''^ practice, and having 
seen and felt its evil influences upon individuals, commu 
nities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than a privi- 
lege, to enter our protest against it, and to use our most 
strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it I Then we 
ar(5 an abolitionist ? Yes I not merely a freesoiler, but an 
abolitionist, in the fullest sense of the term. We are not 
on] J in favor of keeping slavery out of the territories, but, 

carrying our opposition to the institution a step further, 

2 



28 COMPARISON PET\rE2N THF 

we bere unheal takingly declr"e c^M'self in favcv of its in> 
mediate and unconditional abulitioTt, in every state in this 
confederacy, where it now exists ! Patriotism makea us 
a freesoiler ; state pride makes its an emancipaiionist ; a 
profound sense of duty to the Soutli makes us an abolitioc- 
its ; a reasonable degree of fellow feeling for tiic negro, 
mf.kes us a colonizationist. With the free stale men in 
Kanzas and Nebraska, we sympi,Jiize with all our heart 
W3 love the whole country, tiic ^-rc't family of states and 
tc ritories, one and inseparable, i^d would have the word 
Liberty engraved as an appropriate and truthful motto, on 
tho escutcheon of every member cf the confederacy. We 
Ic'^o freedom, we hate slavery, and rather than give up 
the one or submit to the other, wo will forfeit the p!)unf} 
of ilesli nearest our heart. Is this sufficiently explicit arrd 
categorical ? If not, we hold oui.self in readiness at all 
tin.es, to return a prompt reply to any proper quest.' on 
thcit may be propounded. 

Our repugnance to the institulion of slavery, springs 
h\ .Ti no one-sided idea, 'or sickly sentimentality. We have 
not been hasty in making up o^ir ssiind on the eubjoct ; wo 
have jumped at no conclusions ; we h-ave* acted with per- 
fect calmness and deliberation ; :ve hare carefully consid- 
or{,'d, and examined the reason* for and against the insti- 
*iiiion, and have also taken into account the propahle con- 
st 'uences of our decision. Tue r;; re we investigate tho 
Hi tter, the deeper becomes the co" v iction that we are riglit j 
ahl with this to impel and sustain us, we pui'Sueour labof 
with love, with hope, and with constantly renewing vigor 

That we shall encounter opposition we- consider as cei- 



FREE A.VD Tlir, ?I,AVr STATES. 2 

tain ; perhaps we niaj even le subjected to insult and 
violence. From the conceiteJ and cru'.;! oHgarchy of t'.ii 
South, we could look for nothin*^ less. But we shal 
shrink from no responsibility, and do nothing unbecoming 
a man ; we know how to repel indignity, and if assaulted 
shall not fail to make the blow recoil upon the aggres- 
sor's head. The road we have to travel may be a rough 
one, but no impediment shall cause us to falter in oui 
course. The line of our duty is clearly defined, and it is 
our intention to follow it f;iithfully, or die in the attempt. 

But, thanks to heaven, we have no ominous forebodings 
of the result of the contest now pending between Liberty 
and Slavery in this confederacy. Though neither a prophet 
nor the son of a prophet, our vision is sufiQciently pene- 
trative to divine the future so far as to be able to see that 
the " peculiar institution" has but a short, and, as hereto- 
fore, inglorious existence before it. Time, the righter of 
every wrong, is ripening events for the desired consumma- 
tion of our labors and the fulfillment of our cherished 
hopes. Each revolving year brings nearer the inevitable 
crisis. The sooner it comes the better ; may heaven, 
through our humble efforts, hasten its advent. 

The first and most sacred duty of every Southerner, who 
has the honor and the interest of his country at heart, is 
to declare himself an unqualified and uncompromising abo 
litionist. No conditional or half-way declaration will 
avail ; no mere threatening demonstration will succeed. 
With those who desire to be instrumental in bringing 
aboat tliL triumph of liberty over slavery, there should be 
neither evasion vacillation, nor equivocation. We should 



^O COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

listen to no modifying terms or compromise 8 that may be 
prop'-isedby the proprietors of the unprofitable and ungod- 
ly institution. Nothing short of the complete abo'ition of 
slavery can save the South from falling into the vortex of 
utter ruin. Too long have we yielded a submissive obe- 
dience to the tyrannical domination of an inflated oligar- 
chy ; too long have we tolerated their arrogance and self- 
con ;eit ; too long have we submitted to their unjust and 
savage exactions. Let us now wrest from them the scep- 
tre of power, establish liberty and equal rights through- 
out the land, and henceforth and forever guard our legis- 
lative halls from the pollutions and usurpations of pro- 
slavery demagogues. 

We have stated, in a cursory manner, the reasons, as 
we understand them, why the North has surpassed the 
South, and have endeavored to show, we think success- 
fully, that the political salvation of the South depends up- 
on the speedy and unconditional abolition of slavery. We 
will not, however, rest the case exclusively on our own 
arguments, but will again appeal to incontrovertible facts 
and statistics to sustain us in our conclusions. But be- 
fore we do so, we desire to fortify ourself against a charge 
tiiat is too frequently made by careless and superficial 
readers. We allude to the objections so often urged 
;ip;ainst the use of tabular statements and statistical facts 
It is worthy of note, however, that those objections never 
come from thorough scholars or profound thinkers. Among 
the majority of mankind, the science of statistics is only 
beginning to be appreciated ; when well understood, it 
will be recognized as one of the most imp')rtant branches 



FREE AND THE SL^VE ^TAx E3. 29 

of kuowled<jc, and, as a matter of course, be introduced 
and taught as an indispensable element of practical edu- 
cation in all our principal institutions of learning. One 
of the most vigorous and popular transatlantic writers of 
the day, Wm. C. Taylor, LL.D., of Dublin, says : 

" The cultivation of statistics must be the source of all 
future improvement in the science of political economy, 
because it is to the table of the statistician that the eco- 
nomist must look for his facts ; and all speculations not 
founded upon facts, though they may be admired and ap- 
plauded when first propounded, will, in the end, assuredly 
be forgotten. Statistical science may almost be regarded 
as the creation of this age. The word statistics was in- 
vented in the middle of the last century by a German pro- 
fessor,* to express a summary view of the physical, moral, 
and social conditions of States ; he justly remarked, thai 
a numerical statement of the extent, density of population, 
imports, exports, revenues, etc., of a country, more per- 
fectly explained its social condition than general state- 
ments, however graphic or however accurate. When 
such statements began to be collected; and exhibited in a 
popular form, it was soon discovered that the political and 
economical sciences were likely to gain the position of 
physical sciences ; that is to say, they were about to ob- 
tain records of observation, which would test the accu- 
racy of recognized principles, and lead to the discovery of 
new modes of action. But the great object of this new 
Kcience is to lead to the knowledge of human nature ; that 

♦ Acliprvp.il, a native of Elbin^, Prussia. Bi-rii 1719, died 1792 



30 COMPAiilaO^N BEIVTE^N THE 

is, to ascertain the general course of operation of man's 
mental and moral faculties, and to furnish us with a cor- 
rect standard of judgment, by enabling us to determine 
the average amount of the past as a guide to the average 
probabilities of the future. This science is yet in its in- 
fancy but has already produced the most beneficial efiects. 
The accuracy of the tables of life have rendered the cal- 
culations of rates of insurance a matter of much greater 
certainty than they were heretofore ; the system of keep- 
ing the public accounts has been simplified and improved; 
and finally, the experimental sciences of medicine and po- 
litical economy, have been fixed on a firmer foundation 
than could be anticipated in the last century. Even in 
private life this science is likely to prove of immense ad- 
vantage, by directing attention to the collection and regis- 
tration of facts, and thus preventing the formation of hasty 
judgments and erroneous conclusions." 

The compiler, or rather the superintendent of the seventh 
United States census, Prof. De Bow, a gentleman of more 
than ordinary industry and practical learning, who, in his 
excellent Review, has, from time to time, displaj'ed much 
connnendable zeal in his efforts to develop the industrial 
resources of the Southern and South-western states, and 
who is, perhaps, the greatest statistician in the country, 
says :— 

" Statistics are far from being the barren array of figures 
ingeniously and laboriously combined in""0 columns and 
tables, which many persons are apt to suppose them 
They constitute rather the ledger of a nation, in which, 
like the merchant in his books, the citizen can read, at one 



TTiF.R A>'0 TiIE SLAVE STATE^. 31 

^\ew, all of the results of a year or of a period of years, as 
corapared ^ith other periods, and deduce the profit or the 
loss which has been mad«, in morals, education, wealt': or 
power." 

Impressed with a serse of the propriety of introdacmj:^, 
in this as well as in the succeeding chapters of our w.^ik, 
a number of tabular statements exhibiting the comparative 
growth and prosperity of the free and slave states, we have 
deemed it eminently p.aper to adduce the testimony of 
these distinguished author3 in support of the claims wh.ch 
official facts and accurate statistics lay to our consid- ra- 
tion. And here we may remark that the statistics wr'ch 
we propose to offer, lik<3 those already given, have b-en 
obtained from official sources, and may, therefore, be rcl'ed 
on as correct. The object we have in view in makin:r a 
free use of ff^cts and figures, if not already apparent, -^.ill 
soon be rmderstood. It :s not so much in its moral and 
rcligiouf? aspects that we propose to discui-?s the question 
?f slavery, as in its social and political character and 
influences. To say nothing of the sin and the shame of 
slavery, we believe it is a most expensive and unpropt.'le 
institution ; and if ot,v brcthien of the South will Dut 
tlirow aside their unfounded prejudices and preconceived 
opinions, and give us ^ fair and patient hearing, we Tcel 
confident that we can bring them to the same conclus. )n. 
Indeed, we believe we shall be enabled— not alone by ..m- 
own contributions, but with the aid of incontestable A rts 
and arguments which Vv e shall introduce from other sourcrt^ 
—to convince all true-hearted, candid and inteili-' ni 
Southerners, wL^ may chance to read our book, (and wo 



32 - COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

hope their name may be legion) that slavery, and nothing 
but slavery, has retarded the progress and prosperity of 
our portion of the Union ; depopulated and impoverished 
our cities by forcing the more industrious and enterprising 
natives of the soil to emigrate to the free states ; brought 
our domain under a sparse and inert population by pre- 
venting foreign immigration ; made us tributary to the 
North, and reduced us to the humiliating condition of mere 
provincial subjects in fact, though not in name. We 
believe, moreover, that every patriotic Southerner thus 
convinced will feel it a duty he owes to himself, to his 
country, and to his God, to become a thorough, inflexible, 
practical abolitionist. So mote it be I 

Now to our figures. Few persons have an adequate 
idea of the important part the cardinal numbers are now 
jilaying in the cause of Liberty. They are working won- 
ders in the South. Intelligent, business men, from the 
Cliesapeake to the Rio Grande, are beginning to see that 
slavery, even in a mercenary point of view, is impolitic, 
because it is unprofitable. Those unique, mysterious little 
Arabic sentinels on the watch-towers of political economy, 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 8, 9, 0, have joined forces, allied them- 
selves to the powers of freedom, and are hemming in and 
combatting the institution with the most signal success. 
If let alone, we have no doubt the digits themselves would 
soon terminate the existence of slavery ; but we do not 
mean to let them alone ; they must not have all the honor 
of annihilating the monstrous iniquity. We want to become 
an auxil'ary in the good work, and facilitate it. The lib- 
eration of five millions of " poor white trash" from the 



FKEE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 66 

second degree of slavery, and of three millions of niiseraljle 
kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be accom- 
plished too soon. That it was not accomplished many 
years ago is our misfortune. It now behooves us to take 
a bold and determined stand in defence of the inalienable 
rights of ourselves and of our fellow men, and to avenge 
the multiplicity of wrongs, social and political, which we 
have suffered at the hands of a villainous oligarchy. It is 
madness to delay. We cannot be too hasty in carrying 
out our designs. Precipitance in this matter is an utter 
impossibility. If to-day we could emancipate all the slaves 
in the Union, we would do it, and the country and every- 
body in it would be vastly better off to-morrow. Now is 
the time for action ; let us work. 

By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products 
of the free and slave States in 1850, we now propose to 
correct a most extraordinary and mischievous error into 
which the people of the South have unconsciously fallen. 
Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the 
South ; and, strange to say, many pro-slavery Southerners, 
who, in our latitude, pass for intelligent men, are so puffed 
up with the idea of our importance in this respect, that 
they speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit for culti- 
vation, and quite dependent on the South for the necessa- 
ries of life I Such rampant ignorance ought to be knocked 
in the head I We can prove that the North produces 
greater quantities of bread-stuffs than the South I Figures 
shall show the facts. Properly, the South has nothing left 
to boast of ; the North has surpassed her in everything, 

and is going farther and farther ahead of her every day. 

2* 



34 COMPARISON BETWHEN THE 

We ask the reader's careful attention to the following 
tables, which we have prepared at no little cost of time 
and trouble, and which, when duly considered in connection 
with the foregoing and subsequent portions of our work, 
will, we believe, carry conviction to the mind that tho 
downward tendency of the South can be arrested only lu 
the abolition of slavery. 






FREE A\r^ THF. Sr.AVE STATES. 



)6 



tai;lk no. 1. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODH ;fS OF THE FUEJ] STATPJS 1850. 



Ovi it'o; ilia 

C'»uiieci.icut 

illiiiois 

Iiiiliana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts... 

Micliisjan 

New Hampshire. 

N'-w JevM y 

New York 

Ohio 

PeiiMsylvaiiia.. .. 
llhoile [slaiifl — 

Vermont 

Wiscousiu 



VVhoJit, 


Oats, 


It.'Jian C i-n. 


Imsiiflfl. 


^)U^;lu•lrt. 


l)i!tii;c'.. 


17,228 




12:,:i6 


41.702 


1.258,788 


1,985. 143 


9.114,575 


10,(W7,24l 


57 ,6 16,. ^4 


6,214,158 


5,655,014 


52,964, :63 


1.580,581 • 


1,524.845 


8,656.7 1<9 


2;!6,25l> 


2.1.^1,087 


1,750 56 


81,211 


1,16'>.146 


2,845, '90 


4,925,bS'j 


2,866,056 


5,641, -20 


185.G58 


978,881 


1,578,670 


l,6!)l,l'.i0 


8,878,068 


8,759, "04 


13,121,498 


26,552,814 


17,858 '.00 


14,487,851 


18,472,742 


59.078.695 


15,867,091 


21.588,156 


19.885 214 


49 


215,282 


589.201 


585,955 


■ 2.307,784 


2,082 896 


4,2-6,181 


8,414,672 


1,988,^79 


72.157,486 


96,590,871 


242,618,^50 



TAIU.K NO. II. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCrS OF THE SLAVE STATES- 



-1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georiiia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

M;irvla;ul 

Mississippi 

Missouri.. 

Nortii Or."tv^ina. , 
S'luLi") C;r' -^'ip.ii. , 
Tfiines.- • . . . 

1'exas. . , 

\ ir^iaia. , ... 



Wheat, 
bUHhels. 



294,014 

199,(>89 

482.511 

1.027 

1,088,534 

2,142,822 

417 

4,401.6,^0 

187.990 

2,:'8l 652 

2.180,102 

l,06(i,277 I 

i,6i9,..:uj I 

41,729 
11.212.616 I 



Oats, 

bushels. 

2,965.696 

656,183 

604,518 

66.586 

3,820,044 

'8,201,811 

89,687 

2.212.151 

1.508,288 

5,27<s,079 

1.052 078 

2,822.155 

7,7U8,086 

199,017 

10.179.144 



Indian (,'>rn, 
butehels. 

28,754, i)48 

8.898 >39 

3,145. .42 

1.996,^09 

30,080. *99 

58,h72591 

10,266 ;73 

10,749.o58 

22,44t: 52 

36,214 S87 

27,941 -51 

16,271 54 

52,27G :23 

6 028. H 76 

35.254,819 



27,904,476 | 49,882,979 i 348,992,281 



3G 



FKKE AND THE SLA E STATES. 



TABLK NO. III. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 

Califoni-a 

Connecticui 

Illinois 

Intftana 

Jfnva 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire., 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania. . .. 
Rhode Island. . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Potatoes, (I. ; 


Rye, 


Barley, 


& S.) bush, i 


bushels. 


buehelii. 


10,292 ; 




9J12 


2,689,805 1 


600,893 


19.099 


2,672.294 ^ 


83,364 


110,795 


2,285,048 


78,792 


45,483 


282,363 ' 


19,916 


25,093 


3,436,040 


102,916 


151,731 


3,585,3S4 


481,021 


112,385 


2,361,074 


106,871 


75,249 


1 4,307,919 


183,117 


70,256 


j 3,715,251 


1,255,578 


6,492 


1 15,403,997 


4,148,182 


3,585.059 


1 5,245,760 


425,918 


354,358 


1 6,032,904 


4,805,160 


165,584 


651,029 


26,409 


18,875 


4,951,014 


176,233 


42,150 


1,402,956 
59,033,170 


81,253 


209,692 


12,574,623 


5,002,013 



TABL.E NO. IV. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES- 



-1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Potatoes, (L 
&. S.) bush. 

5,721,205 

981,981 

805,985 

765,054 

7,213,807 

2,490,666 

1,524,085 

973,932 

5,003,277 

1,274,511 

5,716,027 

4,473,960 

n 3,845,560 

1,426,803 

3,130,567 



Rye, 

bushels. 



17,261 

8,047 

8,066 

1,152 

53,750 

415,073 

475 

226,014 

9,606 

44,268 

229,563 

43,790 

89,137 

3,108 

458,930 



44,847,420 ' 1 608,240 



Barley, 
bushels. 

3,958 

177 

56 

11,501 
95,343 

745 
228 
9,631 
2,735 
4,583 
2.737 
4,776 
25,437 

161 907 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



37 



TABLE NO. V. 

AQRJCULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES — 1850. 



States. 


Buckwheat, 
bushels. 


Beans ■&, Peas, 
bushels. 


Clov. & Grasa 
seeds, bush. 


California 


229,297 
184,509 
149,740 

52,516 
104,523 
105,895 
472,917 

65,265 

878,934 

3,183,955 

638,060 

2,193,692 

1,245 

209.819 

79,878 


2.292 

19^090 

82,814 

35,773 

4,475 

205,541 
43,709 
74.254 
70.856 
14,174 

741,546 
60,168 
55,231 




Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 


30.469 

17,807 

30,271 

2 438 


Iowa 


Maine 


18,311 

6.087 

26 274 


Massachusetts 

Michigan 


New Hampshire 


8,900 

91,331 

184 715 


Ne w Jersey 

New York 


Ohio 

Pennsylvania 


140,501 

I78.tu;^ 


Rhode Island 


6,846 5 0,^.6 


Vermont 


104,619 
20,657 


15 696 


Wisconsin , 


5^486 




8,550,245 


1,542,295 


702,265 



TABLE NO. VI. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Buckwheat, 
bushels. 



348 

175 

8,615 

55 

250 

16,097 

3 

103,671 

1,121 

23,641 

16,704 

283 

19,427 

59 

214,898 

405,357 



Beans fe Peas, 
bushels. 

892,701 

285,738 

4,120 

135,359 

1,142,011 

202,574 

161,732 

12,816 

1,072,757 
46,017 

1,584,252 

1,026,900 
369,321 
179,351 
521,579 

7,637,227 



Clov. &. Grass 
secdA, bush. 

685 

526 

8,928 

2 

560 

24,711 

99 

17,778 

617 

4,965 

1,851 

406 

14,214 

10 

53,155 

123,517 



38 



COMPARISON BETWERN THE 



TaBI.E no. VII. 

AGRICULTTTRAL PRODl.OTS OF THE FJiEE STATES 18.0. 

StatoB. 



Ca'iforiiin 

C<JJiuectieuL 

Illinois 

Indiana 

luwa 

Maine 

Massacliu>etts... 

Michigan 

Kew Haiiipsliire. 

N' \v Jer.s< y 

New York 

Ohio 

Pfiiiisyhania.. .. 

Riiode Island 

Vermont 

AVibcontin 



F!aXKO«'d, 


Val. of Gar- 


Va! ofOi- 


l)U^i^K'ls. 


don piouucts. 


chani jJioil'tH 




$75 275 


$17,700 


703 


19H,874 


175,118 


10,787 


127 494 


440.049 


30,888 


72.804 


324.9 iO 


1,H59 


8,848 


8,434 


580 


122,887 


342,805 


72 


000,020 


403.995 


519 


14.738 


132,650 


189 


56,810 


248,500 


1G520 


475,242 


007,208 


; 57/65 


912,047 


1,701,950 


! 188,880 


21 i, 004 


695.921 


i 41,728 


688,714 


723,389 


1 


98,2'.)8 


63,094 


939 


18.853 


315,255 


1,191 


82.142 


4,823 


858. 923 


83.7 If, 005 


$0 332,914 



TAHLi: NO VLII. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES- 



-1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware , 

Florida 

Georiiia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Ml! viand 

Mi.'».^issit>i>i 

MissriUli.. 

Jvortlt Cai<»:i:ia. . 
Siiutli (Carolina. . 

Tennessee , 

Texas 

Virginia 



Flax.-<eed, 

1 llr^lielti. 



69 
321 

904 

622 
7o,8ol 

2,446 
26 

13.6.^6 

38.1!>6 
55 

18.90 4 
20 

62.318 



I V:il. of Gar- ; Val of Or- 
I den j)rodtiiU. ; chard proii'ts. 



S84,821 

17.150 

12,714 

8.721 

76.500 

SOMiO 

148.3i9 

200,80:) 

40,250 
99.4.) ^ 
39.402 ! 
47.286 I 
97.183 ! 
12.354 1 
LS3.047 ! 



SI 5, 408 

40.141 

46,574 

1,280 

92.776 

106 2 10 
22.259 

101.051 
50.405 

C14.7H 
34.318 
35 108 
52 894 
12 505 

177.137 



203,484 1 Sl,377,260 ; $1,355,827 



FREE AND THE SLAT'E STATES. 89 



RECAPITULATION FREE STATES. 

Wlioat 72,157.486 bush, q 1.50 S108.2nfi 220 

Oats iU),51«0,871 " " 40 38.<j;;e3.n8 

(iMiiari Corn 2l2.t)18.«50 " " GO 14.').571J'»0 

I»i»iaH!Cs (1. & S.). 5W.():58.170 " " 38 22,4-^2.004 

Rye 12,574.623 " " 1.00 12,574,623 

Eaili'v 5,002.013 " " 90 4,51)1.811 

Buckwhoat 8,550,245 " " 50 4.275,122 

Beans & Peas 1,542,295 " " 1.75 2.()1)'.H)15 

CI0V.& Grass seeds 762,265 ♦' " 3.00 2,286,7i»5 

Flaxseeds 358,923 '• " 1.25 448,617 

Garden Products.. 3,7U,6 5 

Orchard Products. 6,332,914 



Total, 409,190,041 bushels, valued as above, at $351,709,703 

RECAPITULATION SLAVE STATES. 

Wheat 27,904,476 bush. ^ 1.50 $41,850,714 

Oats 49,882,799 " " 40 19,953,191 

Indian Corn 348,992,282 '* ♦' 60 209,395,369 

Potatoes (I. & S.). 44,847,420 '« " 38 17,042,019 

Rye 1,608,240 " " 1.00 1,608,240 

Barley 161.907 '* " 90 145,716 

Buckwheat 405,357 " " 50 202,678 

Beans & Peas 7,637,227 " " 1.75 13 365,117 

Clov.iS: Grass seeds 123,617 " " 3 00 370,5')1 

Flaxseeds 203,484 " " 1.25 251.355 

Garden Products . . 1,377,260 

Orchard Products. 1 ,355.827 



Total 481,700,889 bushels, valued as above, at S300/J27,U67 

TOTAL DIFFERENCE BUSHEL-IIEASUEE PRODUCTS. 

Bu.-<helrt. Value. 

^ree States 499,190.011 $351,709,70", 

Slave States .481,766,889.,.,, 306,927,067 



Balance in bushel? 17,423,152 Difference in value... $'44, 7S2,();;0 



4j0 comparison between the 

So much foi the boasted agricultural superiority of the 
South ! Mark well the balance in bushels, and the differ- 
ence in value ! Is either in favor of the South ? No ! 
Are both in favor of the North ? Yes I Here we have 
unquestionable proof that of all the bushel-measure pro- 
ducts of the nation, the free states produce far more than 
one-half ; and it is worthy of particular mention, that the 
excess of Northern products is of the most valuable kind. The 
account shows a balance against the South, in favor of the 
North, of seventeen million four hundred and twenty-three thou- 
sand one hundred and fifty-two bushels, and a difference in 
value of forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thou- 
sand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. Please bear thesL 
facts in mind, for, in order to show positively how the free 
and slave States do stand upon the great and important 
subject of rural economy, we intend to take an account of 
all the other products of the soil, of the live-stock upoi. 
farms, of the animals slaughtered, and, in fact, of every 
item of husbandry of the two sections ; and if, in bringing 
our tabular exercises to a close, we find slavery gaining 
upon freedom — a thing it has never yet been known to do 
— we shall, as a matter of course, see that the above 
amount is transferred to the credit of the side to which it 
of right belongs. 

In making up these tables we have two objects in view ; 
the first is to open the eyes of the non-slaveholders of the 
South, to the system of deception, that has so long been 
practiced upon them, and the second is to show slave- 
holders themselves — we have reference only to those who 
are not too perverse, or ignorant, to perceive naked truths 



FREE AXn THE >LAVE STATE3 41 

— that free labor is far more respectable, pre fitable, and 
productive, than slave labor. In the South, unfortunately, 
no kiAd of labor is either free :r respectable. Every white 
man who is under the necessity of earning his bread, by 
the sweat of his brow, or by manual labor, in any capaci- 
ty, no matter how unassuming in deportment, or exem- 
plary in morals, is treated as if he was a loathsome beast, 
and shunned with the utmost disdain. His soul may be 
the very seat of honor and integrity, yet without slaves — 
himself a slave — he is accounted as nobody, and would 
be deemed intolerably presumptuous, if he dared to open 
his mouth, even so wide as to give faint utterance to a 
three-lettered monosyllable, like yea or nay, in the pres- 
ence of an august knight of the whip and the lash. 

There are few Southerners who will not be astonished 
at the disclosures of these statistical comparisons, be- 
tween the free and the slave States. That the astonish- 
ment of the more intelligent and patriotic non-slaveholders 
will be mingled with indignation, is no more than we an- 
ticipate. We confess our own surprise, and deep chagrin, 
at the result of our investigations. Until we examined 
into the matter, we thought and hoped the South was 
really ahead of the North in 07ic particular, that of agri- 
culture ; but our thoughts have been changed, and our 
hopes frustrated, for instead of finding ourselves the pos- 
sessors of a single advantage, we behold our dear native 
South stripped of every laurel, and sinking deeper and 
deeper in the depths of poverty and shame ; while, at the 
same time, we see the North, our successful rival, extract- 
ing and absorbing the few elements of wealth yet remain- 



42 COMPARISON BETWKEX THE 

in;^ a!non<2:st ns, and rising liighcr and higher in the scale 
of fame, fortune, and invnlnerable power. Thus our dis- 
appointment gives way to a feeling of intense mortifica- 
tion, and our soul involuntarily', but justly, we believe, 
cries out for retribution against the trwacherous, slave- 
driving legislators, who have so basely and unpatriotical^y 
neglected the interests of their poor white constituents and 
bargained away the rights of posterity. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the white non-slaveln)lders of the South, 
are in the majority, as five to one, they have never 3'et 
had any part or lot in framing the laws under which they 
live. There is no legislation except for the benefit of slave- 
ry, and slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white per- 
sons are regarded with less esteem and attention than 
negroes, and though the condition of the latter is wretcli- 
cd beyond description, vast numbers of the former are in- 
finitely worse (3ff. A cunningly devised mockery of free- 
dom is guarantied to them, and that is all. To all intents 
and purposes they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and 
the only privilege extended to them, is a shallow and cir- 
cumscribed particiy)ation in the political movements that 
usher slaveholders into office. 

We have not breathed away seven and twenty years in 
the South, without becoming acquainted with the dema- 
gogical manoeuverings of the oligarchy. Their intrigues 
and tricks of legerdemain are as familiar to us as house- 
hold words ; in vain might the world be ransacked for a 
more precious junto of flatterers and cajolers It is amus- 
iua; to igrnorance, amazino: to credulitv, and insulting to 
intelligence, to hear thera in tlx.dr blattering efforts to mys- 



FRr.E AND THE SLAVE STATES. 43 

tify and pervert tlie sacred principles of liberty, and turn 
the eiusc of slavery into a blessinj^. To the illiterate 
poor whites — made poor and ignorant by the system of 
slavery — they hold out the idea that slavery is the very 
bulwark of our liberties, and the foundation of AmeriCvin 
independence I For hours at a time, day after day, will 
they expatiate upon the inexpressible beauties and excel- 
lencies of this great, /rcc and 'mdeptiident nation ; and final- 
ly, with the most extravagant gesticulations and rhetori- 
cal flourishes, conclude their nonsensical ravings, by atr 
tributing all the glory and prosperity of the country, fjom 
Maine to Texas, and from Georgia to California, to the 
" invaluable institutions of the South 1" With what pa- 
tience we could command, we have frequently listened to 
the incoherent and truth-murdering declamations of these 
champions of slavery, and, in the absence of a more poli- 
tic method of giving vent to our disgust and indignation, 
have involuntarily bit our lips into blisters. 

The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of 
the blacks, who are bought and sold, and driven about 
like 80 many cattle, but they arc also the oracles and ar- 
biters of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is 
m.orely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and de- 
gradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How 
little the ** poor white trash," the great majority of tlie 
Southern people, know of the real condition of the country 
is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know 
nothing of public measures, and little of private affair ?, 
except what their imperious masters, the slave-drivfrs, 
condescend to tell, and that is but precious little, a!i'l 



44 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

even that little, always garbled and o le-sided, is never 
told except in public harangues ; for the haughty cava- 
liers of shackles and handcuffs will not degrade them- 
selves by holding private converse with those who have 
neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human flesh. 

Whenever it pleases, and to the extent it pleases, a 
slaveholder to become communicative, poor whites may 
hear with fear and trembling, but not speak. They must 
be as mum as dumb brutes, and stand in awe of their au- 
gust superiors, or be crushed with stern rebukes, cruel 
oppressions, or downright violence. If they dare to think 
for themselves, their thoughts must be forever concealed. 
The expression of any sentiment at all conflicting with 
the gospel of slavery, dooms them at once in thf, commu- 
nity in which they live, and then, whether willing or un- 
willing, they are obliged to become heroes, martyrs, oi 
exiles. They may thirst for knowledge, but there is no 
Moses among them to smite it out of the recks of Horeb. 
The black veil, through whose almost impenetrable meshes 
light seldom gleams, has long been pendent over their 
eyes, and there, with fiendish jealousy, the slave-driving 
ruffians sedulously guard it. Non-sli« beholders are not 
only kept in ignorance of what is transpiring at the North, 
but they are continually misinformr d of what is going on 
even in the South. Never were the poorer classes of 
a people, and those classes so largely in the majority, and 
all inhabiting the same country, so basely duped, so 
adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged. 

It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, 
the white victims of slaveiy, will believe, and, as a gen- 



FREE A\D THE SLAVE STATES. 45 

eral thing, they do believe, whatever the slaveholders 
tell them ; and thus it is that they are cajoled into the ii-.- 
tiou that they are the freest, happiest and most intelligent 
people in the world, and are taught to look with prejudice 
and disapprobation upon every new principle or progres- 
sive movement. Thus it is that the South, woefully inert 
and inventionless, has lagged behind the North, and is 
now weltering in the cesspool of ignorance and degra- 
dation. 

We have already intimated that the opinion is preva- 
^^ill.^li^T^"F^^^"* *^^^ South that the free States are quite 
sterile and unproductive, and that they are mainly depen- 
dent on us for breadstuffs and other provisions. So far 
as the cereals, fruits, garden vegetables and esculent 
roots are concerned, we have, in the preceding tables, 
shown the utter falsity of this opinion ; and we now pro- 
pose to show that it is equally erroneous in other parti- 
culars, and very far from the truth in the general reckon- 
ing. We can prove, and we intend to prove, from facts 
in our possession, that the hay crop of the free States is 
worth considerably more in dollars and cents than all the 
cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen 
slave States. This statement may strike some of our 
readers with amazement, and others may, for the moment, 
regard it as quite incredible ; but it is true, nevertheless, 
and we shall soon proceed to confirm it. The single free 
State of New- York produces more than three times the quan- 
tity of hay that is produced in all the slave States. Ohio 
produces a larger number of tons than all the Southern and 
Southwesteri States, and so does Pennsylvania. Vermont, 



46 COMFARIrfON JET^VEEN THE 

litlle and unpretending' as she is, does the Sxinie things, 
with the exception of V'irginia. Look at the facts as pre- 
seiiled in the tables, and let yjnr own eyes, physical and 
intellectual, confirm you in the truth. 

And yet, fors >oth, the slave-driving oligarchy would 
whip us into the belief that apc»'iculture is not one of the 
leading and lucrative pursuits of the free States, that the 
soil there is an uninterrupted barren waste, and that our 
Northern brethren, having the advantage in nothing ex- 
cept wealth, population, inland and foreign com;nerce, 
manufactures, mechanism, inventions, literature, the arts 
and sciences, and tlieir concomitant brauehes of profitable 
industry, — miserable objects of charity— are dependent on 
us for the necessaries of life. 

Next to Virginia, Maryland is the greatest Soutliorn 
hay-producing State *, and yet, it is the opinion of several 
of the most extensive hay and grain dealers in Baltimore, 
with whom we have conversed on the subject, that the do- 
mestic crop is scarcely equal to one-third tin.' demand, 
and that the balance required for home consumption, a!)Mut 
two-thirds, is chiefly brought from New-York, Pennsylva- 
nia and Massachusetts. At this rate, Maryland receives 
and consumes not less than three hundred and fifteen 
thousand tons of Northern hay every year ; and this, as 
wQ. are informed by the dealers above-mentioned, at an 
• verage cost to the last purchaser, by the time it is sto.v- 
ed in the mow, of at least twenty-five dollars per ton ; it 
would thus appear that this most popular and valuable 
provender, one of the staple commodities of the North, 
commauds a market in a single s'avc State, to tlie amount 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 41 

r,f seven million eigiit hundrcu an*"^ sc\enty-five f-rjasanti 
n.Diliirs per luuinin. 

Iji tliis same State of Maryland, less than one iilUion of 
(I -liar's worth of cotton finds a maiKct, the whole number 
i)l" bales sold here in 1850 amounting to only twenty-three 
tliousand three hundred and twenty-five, valued at seven 
hundred and forty-six thousand four hundred dollars. 
Briefly, then, and in round numbers, we may state the case 
thus Maryland buys annually seven millions of dollars 
wortn of hay from the North, and one million of dollars 
worth of cotton from the South. Let slaveholders and 
their fawning defenders read, ponder and compare. 

The exact quantities of Northern hay, rye, and buck- 
wheat flour, Irish potatoes, fruits, clover and grass seeds, 
and other products of the soil, received and consumed in all 
the slaveholding States, we have no means of ascertaining; 
but for all practical purposes, we can arrive sufficiently 
near to the amount by inference from the above data, and 
from what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears 
wherever we go. Food from the North for man or for 
beast, or for both, is for sale in every market in the S<mth. 
Even in the most insignificant little villages in the inte- 
rior of the slave States, where books, newspapers and 
other mediums of intelligence are unkuovv^n, wlicre the 
poor whites and the nognx's are alike bowed down in 
heathenish ignorance and barbarism, an:l where tlie news 
is received but once a week and then only in a Northorn- 
built stage-coach, drawn by horses in Nortluu-n harness, 
in cliarge of a driver dressed oip-a^pie in Northern habili- 
ments and witk a Northern whip in his baud, — the agrr 



48 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

cultural products of the North, either crude, prepared, 
pickled or preserved, are ever to be found. 

Mortifying as the acknowledgment of the fact is to uy, 
it is our unbiased opinion — an opinion which will, we be- 
lieve, be endorsed by every intelligent person who goes 
into a careful examination and comparison of all the facts 
in the case — that the profits arising to the North from the 
sale of provender and provisions to the South, are far 
gi^eatcr than those arising to the South from the sale of 
cotton, tobacco and breadstuffs to the North. It follows, 
then, that the agricultural interests of the North being 
not only equal but actually superior to those of the South, 
the hundreds of millions of dollars which the commerce 
and manufactures of the former annually yield, is just so 
much clear and independent gain over the latter. It fol- 
lows, also, from a corresponding train or system of deduc- 
tion, and with all the foregoing facts in view, that the dif- 
ference between freedom and slavery is simply the dif- 
ference between sense and nonsense, wisdom and folly, 
good and evil, right and wrong. 

Any observant American, from whatever point of the 
compass he may hail, who will take the trouble to pass 
through the Southern markets, both great and small, as 
we have done, and inquire where this article, that and 
the other came from, will be utterly astonished at the va- 
riety and quantity of Northern agricultural productions 
kei)t for sale. And this state of things is growing worse 
and worse every year. Exclusively agricultural as the 
S' uth is in her industrial pursuits, she is barely able to 
support hier sparse and degenerate population. Her men 



FREE AND THE SLATE STATES. 40 

and hex domestic animals, both dwarfed into shabby ob- 
jects cf commiseration under the blighting effects of sla- 
very, are constantly feeding on the multifarious products 
of Noi them soil. And if the whole truth must be told, we 
may here add, that these products, like all other articles 
of merchandize purchased at the North, are generally 
bought on a credit, and, in a great number of instances, 
by far too many, never paid for — not, as a general rule, 
because the purchasers are dishonest or unwilling to pay, 
but because they are impoverished and depressed by the 
retrogressive and deadening operations of slavery, that 
most unprofitable and pernicious institution under which 
they live. 

To show how well we -are sustained in our remarks up- 
on hay and other special products of the soil, as well as 
to give circulation to other facts of equal significance, 
we quote a single passage from an address by Paul 0. 
Cameron, before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, 
North Carolina. This production is, in the main, so pow- 
erfully conceived, so correct and plausible in its state- 
ments and conclusions, and so well calculated, though, 
perhaps, not intended, to arouse the old North State to a 
sense of her natural greatness and acquired shame, that 
we could wish to see it published in pamphlet form, and 
circulated throughout the length and breadth of that un- 
fortunate and degraded heritage of slavery. Mr. Came- 
ron says : 

" I know not when I have been more humiliated, as a 

North Carolina farmer, than when, a few weeks ago, at a 

i-ailroad depot at the very doors of our State capital, I saw 

8 



50 C0■MPARI30^• BE-nVEEN TR2 

wagons drawn by Kentucky mi^les, loading witu Northern 
hay, for the supply not only of the town^ hut to he taken 
to the country. Such a sight at the capital of a State 
whose population is almost exclus-ively devoted to agri- 
culture, is a most humiliating exhihition. Let us cease to 
use eYeiy thing, as far as it is practicable, that is not the 
product of our own soil and workshops — not an axe, or i» 
broom, or bucket, from Connecticut, By every consider- 
ation of self-preservation, we are called to make better 
efforts to expel the Northern grocer from the State with 
his butter, and the Ohio and Kentucky horse, mule and 
hog driver, from our county at least. It is a reproach on 
us as farmers, and no little deduction from our wealthy 
that we suffer the population of our towns and villages 
to supply themselves with butter from another Orange 
County in New-York.'^ 

We have promised to prove that the hay crop of the fiee 
states is worth considerably more than all the cotton, 
tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave 
States. The compilers of the last census, as we learn from 
Prof. Be Bow, the able and courteous superintendent, in 
making up the hay-tables, allowed two thousand two hun- 
dred and forty pounds to the ton. The price per ton at 
which we should estimate its value has puzzled us to some 
extent. Dealers in the article in Baltimore think it will 
average twenty-five dollars, in their market. Four or five 
manths ago they sold it at thirty dollars per ton. At the 
very time we wiite, though there is less activity in the 
article than usual, we learn, from an examination of sundry 
prices-current and commercial journals, that hay is selling 



FKEE AND TgE SLAVE BTATE3. 51 

in Savannah at $33 per ton ; in Mobile and Xew Orleans 
at $26 ; in Charleston at $25 ; in Louisville at $24 ; and 
in Cincinnati at $23. The average of these prices is 
twemy-six dollars sixteen and two-third cents ; and we suppose 
it would be fair to employ the figures which would indicate 
this amount, the net value of a single ton, in calculating 
the total market value of the entire crop. Were we to do 
this — and, with the foregoing facts in view, we submit to 
intelligent men whether we would not be justifiable in 
doing it, — the hay crop of the free states, 12,690,982 tons, 
in 1850, would amount in valuation to the enormous sum 
of $331,081,695 — more than four times the value of all the 
cotton produced in the United States during the same 
period I 

But we shall not make the calculation at what we have 
found to be the average value per ton throughout the 
country. What rate, then, shall be agreed upon as a basis 
of comparison between the value of the hay crop of the 
North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the 
truth of our declaration — that the former exceeds the aggre- 
gate value of all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp 
produced in the fifteen- slave States ? Suppose we ta]ie 
$13,08| — just half the average value — as the multiplier in 
this arithmetical exercise. This we can well afford to do ; 
indeed, we might reduce the amount per ton to much less 
than half the average value, and still have a large margin 
left for triumphant demonstration. It is not our purpose, 
however, to make an overwhelming display of the incom- 
j parable greatness of the free States. 

In estimating the value of the various agricultural pro- 



52 COMPARISON BETWjEN THE 

ducts of the two great sections of the country, we ha^'e 
been guided by prices emanating from the Bureau of Agri- 
culture in Washington ; and in a catalogue of those prices 
now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay 
throughout the nation is supposed to be not more than 
half a cent per pound — $11.20 per ton — which, as we have 
seen above, is considerably less than half the present 
market value ; — and this, too, in the face of the fact that 
prices generally rule higher than they do just now. It 
will be admitted on all sides, however, that the prices fixed 
upon by the Bureau of Agriculture, taken as a whole, are 
as fair for one section of the country as for the other, and 
that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one par- 
ticular without deviating from them in another. Eleven 
dollars and twenty cents ($11.20) per ton shall therefore 
be the price ; and, notwithstanding these greatly reduced 
figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration 
and promise, that — We can prove, and we shall now proceed to 
prove, that the annual hay crop of the free States is worth consid- 
erahly more in dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, 
hay, hemp and cane sugar annually pre duced in the fifteen slave 
States. 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 58 

HAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES 1S50. 

12,690.98^ tonsan,20 S142,138,998 

SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 

Cotton 2,445,779 bales a 32,00 S'78,2Gi,928 

Tobacco, 185,023,906 lbs. " 10 18,502,390 

Rice (rough) 215,313 497 lbs. " 4 8,612,539 

Hay 1,137,784 tons " 11,20 12,743,180 

Hemp 34,67y tons "112,00 3,883,376 

Cane Sugar 237,133,000 lbs. " 7 16,599,310 



$138,005,723 

RECAPITULATION. 

Hay crop of tlie free States $142,138,998 

Sundry products of the slave States 138,605,723 



Balance in favor of the free States $3,533,275 

There is the account ; look at it, and let it stand in at- 
testation of the exalted virtues and surpassing powers of 
freedom. Scan it well, Messieur s lords of the lash, and learn 
from it new lessons of the utter inefficiency, and despica- 
ble imbecility of slavery. Examine it minutely, liberty- 
loving patriots of the North, and behold in it additional 
evidences of the beauty, grandeur, and super-excellence 
of free institutions. Treasure it up in your minds, out- 
raged friends and non-slaveholders of the South, and let 
the recollection of it arouse you to an inflexible determina- 
tion to extirpate the monstrous enemy that stalks abroad 
in your land, and to recover the inalienable rights and 
liberties, which have been filched froii you by an unprin- 
cipled oligarchy. 

In deference to truth, decency and good sense, it is to 



54 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

be hoped that, negro-driving politicians will never more 
have the effrontery to open their mouths in extolling the 
agricultural achievements of slave labor. Especially is it 
desirable, that, as a simple act of justice to a basely de- 
j ceived populace, they may cease their stale and senseless 
harangues on the importance of cotton. The value of cot- 
ton to the South, to the North, to the nation, and to the 
world, has been so grossly exaggerated, and so extensive 
have been the evils which have resulted in consequence 
of the extraordinary misrepresentations concerning it, that 
we should feel constrained to reproach ourself for remiss- 
ness of duty, if we failed to make an attempt to explode 
the popular error. The figures above show what it is, and 
what it is not. Eecur to them, and learn the facts. 

So h^^perbolically has the importance of cotton been 
magnified by certain pro-slavery politicians of the South, 
that the person who would give credence to all their fus- 
tian and bombast, would be under the necessity of believ- 
ing that the very existence of almost everything, in the 
heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the water un- 
der the earth, depended on it. The truth is, however, that 
the cotton crop is of but little value to the South. New 
\ England and Old England, by their superior enterprise 
I and sagacity, turn it chiefly to their own advantage. It 
is carried in their ships, spun in their factoi^ps, woven in 
I their looms, insured in their offices, return^Bd again in their 
own vessels, and, w'th double freight and cost of manu- 
facturing added, purchased by the South at a high premi 
iim. Of all the parties engaged or interesteid in its trans- 
portation and manufacture, tlie South is the only one that 



FRKE AX.') THE SLAVE STATES. 55 

docs not make a protlt. Nor does she, as a general thing, 
make a prolit by producing it. 

We are credibly informed that many of the farmers in 
the immediate vicinity of Baltimore, where we now write, 
have turned their attention exclusively to hay, and that 
from one acre they frequently gather two tons, for which 
they receive fifty dollars. Let us now inquire how many 
dollars may be expected from an acre planted in cotton. 
Mr. Cameron, from whose able address before the Agricul- 
tural Society of Orange County, North Carolina, we have 
already gleaned some interesting particulars, informs us, 
that the cotton planters in his part of the country, "have 
contented themselves with a crop yielding only ten or 
twelve dollars per acre/^ and that " the summing up of a large 
surface gives but a living result." An intelligent resident 
of the Palmetto State, writing in De Bows Review, 
not long since, advances the opinion that the cotton 
planters of South Carolina are not realizing more than one 
per cent, on the amount of capital they have invested. 
While in Virginia, very recentl}^, an elderly slaveholder, 
whose religious walk and conversation had recommended 
and promoted him to an eldership in the Presbyterian 
church, and who supports himself and family by raising 
niggers and tobacco, told us that, for the last eight or ten 
years, aside from the increase of his human chattels, he 
felt quite confident he had not cleared as much even as 
one per cent, per annum on the amount of his investment. 
The real and personal property of this aged Christian con- 
sists chiefly in a large tract of land and about thirty ne- 
groes, most of v^hom, accor<"'ing to his own confession, are 



56 OOMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

more expensive than profitable. The proceeds arising from 
the sale of the tobacco they produce, are all absorbed in 
the purchase of meat and bread for home consumption, and 
when the crop is stunted by drought^ frost, or otherwise 
cut s?:ort, one of the negroes must be sold to raise funds 
for the support of the others. Such are the agricultural 
achievements of slave labor ; such are the results of " the 
sum of all villainies.^' The diabolical institution subsists 
on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to pro- 
cure food for the parents, at another, parents are sold to 
procure food for the children. Within its pestilential at- 
mosphere, nothing succeeds ; progress and prosperity are 
unknown ; inanition and slothfulness ensue ; everything 
becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable ; wi'etchedness and 
desolation run riot throughout the land; an aspect of most 
melancholy inactivity and dilapidation broods over every 
city and town ; ignorance and prejudice sit enthroned 
over the minds of the people ; usurping despots wield the 
sceptre of power ; everywhere, and in everything, between 
Delaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudin- 
ous evils of slavery apparent. 

The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unna- 
tural tread of the slave. Hear what the Hon. 0. C. Clay, of 
Alabama, has to say upon the subject. His testimony is 
eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthful ; and we 
heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every 
spirited Southron who loves his country, and desires to 
see it rescued from the fatal grasp of " the mother of har- 
lots :" Says he : 

" I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 51 

Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad 
memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. 
Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, 
unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are 
going further West and South, in search of other virgin 
lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in 
like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means 
and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors, 
extending their plantations, and adding to their slave 
force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller 
profits, and to give their blasted fields s©me rest, are thus 
pushing off the many who are' merely independent. Of the 
$20,000,000 annually realized from the sales of the cotton 
crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting 
the producers, is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus 
the white population has decreased and the slave increas- 
ed almost pari passu in several counties of our State. In 
1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes ; now, 
she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that 
county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the 
abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occu- 
pied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted and dilapidated ; he 
will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, 
and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and broom- 
sedge ; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering 
walls of once thrifty villages, and will find ' one only mas- 
ter grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished happy 
nomes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country 
in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree 
had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhi- 



68 C0MPARI30X BETWEEN THE 

biting the painful signs of senility and decay, appare: t in 
Virginia and the Carolinas." 

Some one has said that " an honest confession is good 
for the soul," and if the adage be true, as we have no 
doubt it is, we think Mr. C. C. Clay is entitled to a quiet 
conscience on one score at least. In the extract quoted 
above, he gives us a graphic description of the ruinous 
operations and influences of slavery in the Southwest ; and 
we, as a native of Carolina, and a traveler through Vir- 
ginia, are ready to bear testimony to the fitness of his re- 
marks when he referred to those States as examples of 
senility and decay. With* equal propriety, however, he 
might have stopped nearer home for a subject of compa- 
rison. Either of the States bordering upon Alabama, or, 
indeed, any other slave States, would have answered his 
purpose quite as well as Virginia and the Carolinas. 
Wherever slavery exists there he may find parallels to the 
destruction that is sweeping with such deadly influence 
over his own unfortunate State. 

As for examples of vigorous, industrious and thrifty 
communities, they can be found anywhere beyond the 
Upas-shadow of slavery — nowhere else. New- York and 
Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far in- 
ferior to Virginia and the Carolinas, have, by the more 
liberal and equitable policy which they have pursued, in 
substituting liberty for slavery, at^ined a degree of emi- 
nence and prosperity altogether unknown in the slave 
States. 

Amidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving pol- 
iticians who, as we have already seen, are ' the books, tbe 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. f)9 

arts, the acadcDiies, that show, contain, and govern all the 
South,' we arc rejoiced to see that Mr. Clay, Mr. Cameron, 
and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to 
step forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank 
admissions are to be hailed as good omens for the South. 
Nothing good can come from any attempt to conceal the 
unconcealable evidences of poverty and desolation every- 
where trailing in the wake of slavery. Let the truth be 
told on all occasions, of the North as well as of the South, 
and the people will soon begin to discover the egregious- 
ness of their errors, to draw just comparisons, to inquire 
into cause and effect, and to adopt the more utile measures, 
manners and customs of their wiser cotemporaries. 

In wilfully traducing and decrying everything North of 
tiason and Dixon's line, and in excessively magnifying the 
mportance of everything South of it, the oligarchy have, 
in the eyes of all liberal and intelligent men, only made an 
exhibition of their uncommon folly and dishonesty. For a 
long time, it is true, they have succeeded in deceiving the 
people, in keeping them humbled in the murky sloughs of 
poverty and ignorance, and in instilling into their untu- 
tored minds passions and prejudices expressly calculated to 
strengthen and protect the accursed institution of slavery ; 
but, thanks to heaven, their inglorious reign is fas.t draw- 
ing to a close ; with irresistible brilliancy, and in spite of 
the interdict of tyrants, light from the pure fountain of 
knowledge is now streaming over the dark places of our 
land, and, ere long — mark our words — there will ascend 
from Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the interme- 
diate States, a huzza for Freedom and for Equal Rights, 



60 COMIARISON BETWEEN TEE 

that will utterly confound the friends of despoti&m, set at 
defiance the authority of usurpers, and carry consternation 
to the heart of every slavery-propagandist. 

To undeceive the people of the South, to bring thenc t© 
a knowledge of the inferior and disreputable position which 
they occupy as a component part of the Union, and to give 
prominence and popularity to those plans which, if adopted, 
will elevate us to an equality, socially, morally, intellectu- 
ally, industrially, politically, and financially, with the most 
flourishing and refined nation in the world, and, if possible, 
to place us in the van of even that, is the object of this 
work. Slaveholders, either from ignorance or from a wilful 
disposition to propagate error, contend that the South has 
nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery has proved a bless- 
ing to her, and that her superiority over the North in an 
agricultural point of view makes amends for all her short- 
comings in other respects. On the other hand, we contend 
that many years of continual blushing and severe penance 
would not suffice to cancel or annul the shame and disorrace 
that justly attaches to the South in consequence of slavery 
— ^the direst evil that e'er befell the land — that the South 
bears nothing like even a respectable approximation to the 
North in navigation, commerce, or manufactures, and that, 
contrary to the opinion entertained by ninety-nine hun- 
dredths of her people, she is far behind the free States in 
the only thing of which she has ever dared to boast — agri 
culture. We submit the question to the arbitration of 
figures, which, it is said, do not lie. With regard to the 
bushel-measure products of the soil, of which we have 
already taken an inventory, we have seen that there h a 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 61 

balance against the South in favor of the North of seventeen 
million four hundred and twenty-three thousand one hundred and 
fifty-two bushels, and a difference in the value of the same, 
also in favor of the North, of forty-four million seven hundred 
and eighty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. It 
is certainly a most novel kind of agricultural superiority 
that the South claims on that score I 

Our attention shall now be directed to the twelve prin- 
cipal pound-measure products of the free and of the slave 
States — hay, cotton, butter and cheese, tobacco, cane, su 
gar, wool, rice, hemp, maple sugar, beeswax and honey, 
flax, and hops — and in taking an account of them, we 
shall, in order to show the exact quantity produced in 
each State, and for the convenience of future reference, 
pursue the same plan as that adopted in the preceding 
tables. Whether slavery will appear to better advantage 
on the scales than it did in the half-bushel, remains to be 
seen. It is possible that the rickety monster may make a 
better show on a new track ; if it makes a more ridiculous 
display, we shall not be surprised. A careful examina- 
tion of its precedents, has taught us the folly of expecting 
anything good to issue from it in any manner whatever. 
It has no disposition to emulate the magnanimity of its 
betters, and as for a laudable ambition to excel, that is a 
characteristic altogether foreign to its nature. Languor 
and inertia are the insalutary viands upon which it de- 
liglits to satiate its morbid appetite ; and " from bad to 
worse" is the ill-omened motto under which, in all its fee- 
ble efforts and achievements, it ekes out a most miserable 
anc"" deleterious existence 



62 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. IX. 

/AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Ilaj', tons. I Hemp, tons. 



California 

(Jonnecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Mic]uo:an 

Kew Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania, . . 
Khocle Island.. . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



2,038 

516,131 

601,952 

403,230 

89,055 

755,889 

051,807 

404,934 

598,854 

435,950 

3,728,797 

1,443,142 

1,842,970 

74,418 

860,153 

275,662 

12.690,982 



4 

150 

44 



198 



Hops, Ibf. 



551 

3,551 

92,796 

8,242 

40,120 

121.595 

10,603 

257,174 

O 1 oo 

2,536,299 

63,731 

22,088 

277 

288,023 

15,930 

3,463,176 



TABLK NO. X. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia. . . . 



Hay, tons. 

82,685 
3,976 

30,159 
2,510 

23,449 
113,747 

25,762 
157,950 

12,504 
116,925 
145,653 

20,925 

74,091 

8,354 

309,098 

1,1.37,784 



Ilemp, tons. 


Hops,lb3. 




270 


15 


157 




O ) Q 

o-xo 




14 




261 


17,787 


4,309 




125 


03 


1,870 


7 


473 


16,028 


4,130 


39 


9,246 




26 


695 


1,032 


139 


11,506 


84,673 


83,780 



FREE AND THE SLATE SPATES. 



63 



TABl^E NO. XI. 

AGruCrirURAL TRODUCTS of the free STATES -1S50. 



Stales. 



California , 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine.. , 

Massachusetts... 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania., .. 

Khode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Fla.x, 
lbs. 



17,928 

1G0,0G3 

584,469 

62,660 

17,081 

1,162 

7,152 

7,652 

182,965 

940,577 

446,932 

530,307 

85 

20,852 

68,393 

3,048,278 



Maple Sugar, 

Ibd. 



50,796 

248,904 

2,921,192 

78,407 

93.542 

795,525 

2.439.794 

1,298,863 

2.197 

10,357,484 

4,588,209 

2,326,525 

28 

6.349,357 

610,976 

32,161,799 



Tobacco, 
lbs. 



1,000 

1,267,624 

841,394 

1,044 620 

6,041 

138,246 

1,245 

50 

310 

83,189 

10,454,449 

912,651 



1,268 
14,752,087 



tabll: no. XII. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.. .. 

]\[issouri.. 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina, 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Flax, 


Maple Sugar, 


Tobacco, 


lb3. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


3,921 


643 


164,990 


12,291 


9,330 


218,936 


17,174 






50 




998.614 


5,387 


50 


423,924 


2,100,116 


437,405 


55,501,196 




255 


26,878 


35,686 


47,740 


21,407,497 


665 




49,960 


627,160 


178,910 


17,113,784 


593,796 


27,932 


11,984,786 


333 


200 


74.285 


368,131 


158,557 


20,148,932 


1,048 




66,897 


1,000,450 


1,227,665 


56,803,227 


4,763,198 


2,088,687 


185,023,906 



64 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. XIII. 

ANIMAL PRODUCTS OF THE PREE STATES — 1855. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Penns3"lvania.. . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Wool, 


Butter and 


Beeswax an 3 


lbs. 


Cheese, lbs. 


Honey, lbs. 


5,520 


855 




497,454 


11,861,396 


93,304 


2,150,113 


13,804,768 


869,444 


2,610,287 


13,506.099 


935,329 


373,898 


2,381,028 


321,711 


1,364,034 


11,678,265 


189,618 


585,136 


15,159,512 


59,508 


2,043,283 


8,077,390 


359,232 


1,108,476 


10,173,619 


117,140 


375,396 


9,852,966 


156,694 


10,071,301 


129.507,507 


1,755,830 


10,196,371 


55,268,921 


804,275 


4,481,570 


42,383,452 


839,509 


129,692 


1,312,178 


6,347 


3,400,717 


20,858,814 


249,422 


253,963 


4,03J,033 


131,005 


39,617,211 


349,860,783 


6,888,368 



TABLK NO. XVI. 

ANIMAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Wool, 
lbs. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.. .. 

Missouri... .. ., 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia . .. . . 



657,118 

182,595 

57,768 

23,247 

990,019 

2,297,433 
109,897 
477,438 
559,619 

1,627.164 
970,738 
487,233 

1,364,378 
131,917 

2,860,765 

12.797,329 



Butter and 
Cheese, lbs. 

4,040,223 
1,884,327 
1,058,495 
389,513 
4,687,535 

10,161,477 
685,026 
3,810,135 
4,367,425 
8,037,931 
4,242,211 
2,986,820 
8,317,266 
2,440,199 

11,525,651 

68.634,224 



Beeswax and 
Honey, lbs. 

897,021 

192,338 

41,248 

18,971 

732,514 

1,158,019 

96.701 

74,802 

397,46C 

1,328,972 

512,289 

216,281 

1,036.572 

380'825 

880,767 

7,964,760 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 



65 



TABLE NO. XV. 

AGRICULTURAI PROI UCTS OF THE SLATE ^lATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virsinia 



Cotton, bales 


Cane 8u?ar, 


Rough Rice, 


of 400 lbs. 


hhds. 1000 lbs. 


lbs. 


564,429 


87 


2,312,252 


65,344 




03,179 


45,131 


2,750 


1,075,090 


499,091 


846 


38,950.691 


758 


10 


6,688 


178,737 


226,001 


4,425,349 


484,292 


8 


2,719,856 
700 


50,545 




5,465,868 


800,901 


77 


159,930,613 


194,532 


3 


258,854 


58,072 


7,351 


88,203 


3,947 




17,154 


2,445,779 


237,133 


215,313,497 



RECAPITULATION FREE STATES. 



Hay 28,427,799,680 lbs. (3) 1-2 c. $142,138,998 



Hemp 

Hops 

Flax 

Maple Sugar 

Tobacco 

AVool 

Butter and Cheese... 
Beeswax and Honey . . 



443,520 

3,463,176 

3,048,278 

32,161,799 

14,752,087 

39,647,211 

349,860,783 

6,888,368 



6" 
15" 
10 '♦ 

8" 
10" 
35 " 
15" 
15" 



22,176 

519,476 

301,827 

2,572,943 

1,475,208 

13,876,523 

52,479,117 

1,033,255 



Total, 28,878,061902 ibs., valued as abc!?e, f 214, t22,523 



66 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



RECAPITULATION —SLAVE STATES. 

Ilay 2,548,636,160 lbs. .-a) 1-2 c. . ..!|12,7<13,180 

Hemp 77,667,520 " " 5 " 3,883,376 

Hops 33,780 " " 15 " 5,067 

Flax 4,766,198 " " 10 " 476,619 

Maple Sugar 2,088,637 " " 8 " 167,09i 

Tobacco 185,023,906 " " 10 " 18,502,390 

Wool 12,797,329 " " 35 " 4,479,065 

Butter and Cheese 68,634,221 " " 15 " 10,295,133 

Beeswax and Honey 7,064,760 '« " 15 " 1,194,714 

Cotton 978,311,600 " " 8 " 78,261,928 

Cane Sugar 237,133,000 " " 7 '•' 16,599,310 

Rice (rough) 215,313,497 " '♦ 4 '• 8,612,530 



Total 4,338,370,601 ibs. valued as above, at $155,223,415 

TOTAL DIFFERENCE POUND-MEASURE PRODUCTS. 

Pounds. Value. 

Free States 28,878,064,902 $214,422,523 

Slave States 4,338,370,661 155,223,415 



Balance in pounds, 24,539,694,241 DiOercnco in value, $59,199,108 

Both quantity and value again in favor of the North ! 
Behold also the enormousness of the difference I In this 
comparison with the South, neither hundreds, thousands, 
nor millions, according to the regular method of computa- 
tion, are sufficient to exhibit the excess of the pound- 
measure products of the North. Recourse must be had to 
an almost inconceivable number ; billions must be called 
into play ; and there are the figures telling us, with un- 
mistakable emphasis and distinctness, that, in this depart- 
ment of agriculture, as in every other,- the North is vastly 
the superior of the South — the figures showing a total 
balance in favor of the former of twenty-fnur billion fice hiin* 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 67 

dred and thiriy-iiine viillion six hundred and ninuy-four thousand 
two hundred and forty-one pounds, valued at fifty-^iine million 
one hundred and mnety-nine thousand one hundred and eight 
dollars. And yd, the Nortli is a poor, God-forsaken coun- 
try, bleak, inhospitable, and unproductive I 

What next ? Is it necessary to adduce otlier facts in 
order to prove that the rural wealth of the free States is 
far greater than that of the slave States ? Shall we make 
a further demonstration of the fertility of northern soil, or 
bring forward new evidences of the inefiScient and desola- 
ting system of terra-culture in the South ? Will nothing 
less than " confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ," 
suffice to convince the South that she is standing in her 
own light, and ruining both body and soul by the reten- 
tion of slavery ? Whatever duty and expedience require 
to be done, we are willing to do. Additional proofs are at 
hand. Slaveholders and slave-breeders shall be convinced, 
confuted', convicted, and converted. They shall, in their 
hearts and consciences, if not with their tongues and 
pens, bear testimony to the triumphant achievements of 
free labor. In the two tables which immediately follow 
these remarks, they shall see how much more vigorous 
and fruitful the soil is when under the prudent manage- 
ment of free white husbandmen, than it is when under the 
rude and nature-murdering tillage of enslaved negroes ; 
and in two subsequent tables they shall find that the live 
stock, slaughtered animals, farms, and farming implements 
and machinery, in the free States, are worth at least one 
thousand million of dollars more than the market value of 
the same in the slave States I In the face, however, of all 



68 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

these most significant and incontrovertible facts, the oli- 
garchy have the unparalleled audacity to tell us that the 
South is the greatest agricultural country in the world, 
and that the North is a dreary waste, unfit for cultivation, 
and quite dependent on us for the necessaries of life. How 
preposterously false all such babble is, the followinpj 
tables will show : — 



■ 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STAIES. 



69 



TABI.E NO. XVI. 

ACTUAL CROrS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN TEE FREE 
STATES 1850. 



States. 


Wheat, 
bushels. 


Oats, 

bubhels. 


Rye. 

bushels. 


Ind. Corn, 

bushels. 


Irish Pota- 
toes, bash. 


Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana - 


11 

12 
11 
10 
16 
10 
11 
11 
12 
12 
15 

13 
14 


21 
29 
20 
36 

26 
26 
30 
26 
25 
21 

30 

85 


14 

18 

13 

17 

25 

20 


40 
33 
33 
32 
27 
31 
32 
30 
33 
27 
36 
20 

32 
30 


85 
115 
100 


Iowa 

Maine 


100 
120 


Massachusetts 

Micliio'an 


170 

140 


New Hampshire.. . 

New Jersey 

New Yorli 

Ohio 


220 
100 


Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 


75 

100 
178 




161 


826 


107 


436 


1,503 



TABLK NO. XVII. 

ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE SLAVE 
STATES 1850. 



Ind. Corn, 


Irish Pota- 


bushels. 


toes, bush. 


15 


60 


22 




20 






175 


16 


125 


24 


130 


16 




23 


75 


18 


105 


34 


110 


17 


65 


1 11 


70 


21 


120 


1 20 


260 


18 


75 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georfjja 

Kentucky 

liouisiana 

INIaryland 

iMississippi 

]\Iissouri 

North Carolina.. 
South Carolina.. 

Tennessee 

j.exas... . • • • •••* 

Virginia.. ... .. 



AVheat, 


Oats, 


bushels. 


bushels. 

1 


5 


1 
12 




18 


11 


20 


15 




5 


18 


8 


18 


13 


21 


9 


12 


11 


26 


7 


10 


8 


12' 


7 


19 


15 




7 


13 


121 


199| 



Rye, 

bushels. 



7 
11 

18 



15 



63; 



276. 1,300 



70 COMPAMSON BETWEEN THE 

RECAPITI'I ATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE 
AVERAGE 1850. 



FREK STATES. 

V/hcat 12 bushels per acre. 

Oats 27 

Rve 18 " 

Indian Corn 31 '* " 

Irish Potatoes 125 " " 



SLAVE STATES. 

Wheat 9 bushels per acre. 

Oats 17 

Rve 11 " " 

Indian Corn. 20 " " 

Irish Potatoes 113 " '* 



What an obvious contrast between the vigor of Liberty 
and the impotence of Slavery! What an unanswerable 
argument in favor of free labor I Add up the two columns 
of figures above, and what is the result ? Two hundred 
and thirteen bushels as the products of five acres in the 
North, and only one hundred and seventy bushels as the 
products of five acres in the South. Look at each item 
separately, and you will find that the average crop per 
acre of every article enumerated is greater in the free 
States than it is in the slave States. Examine the table 
at large, and you will perceive that while Massachusetts 
produces sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre, Virginia 
produces only seven ; that Pennsylvania produces fifteen 
and Georgia only five : that while Iowa produces thirty- 
six bushels of oats to the acre, Mississippi produces only 
twelve ; that Rhode Island produces thirty, and North Ca- 
rolina only ten : that while Ohio produces twenty-five 
bushels of rye to the acre, Kentucky produces only eleven; 
that Vermont produces twenty, and Tennessee only seven: 
that while Connecticut produces forty bushels of Indian 
corn to the acre, Texas produces only twenty ; that New 
Jersey produces thirty-three, and South Carolina only 
eleven : that while New Hampshire produces two hundred 
and twenty bushels of Irish potatoes to the acre, Maryland 
produces only seventy-five ; that Michigan produces one 
hundred and forty, and Alabama only sixty. Now for 
other beauties of slavery in another table. 



FREE AND TRE SLAVE STATES. 



71 



TABI.i: NO. XVIII. 

VALUE JF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN HIE FREE &IAIE3 

—1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Jowa 

Maine 

IMassacliusetts. .. 

Micliijran 

New Ilampsliire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. .. 
llhode Island.. . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



V:ilue of 


V:v1. of Animalis 


CashVal. of Farms, 


Live Stock. 


81;aii,'litered. 


Farm. Imp. &, Mac. 


S'3, 35 1,058 


.S107,173 


S3,977,521 


7,407,49.) 


2,202,266 


74,618.963 


24,209,258 


4,972,286 


102,538,851 


22,478,555 


6,567,935 


143,089,617 


3,689,275 


821.1G4 


17,830,430 


9,705 726 


1,646,773 


57,146,305 


9,647,710 


2,500,924 


112,285,931 


8,008,734 


1,328,327 


54,763,817 


8,871,901 


1,522,873 


57,560,122 


10,679,291 


2,638,552 


124,663.014 


73,570,499 


13,573,883 


576,031,568 


44,121,741 


7,439,243 


371,509,188 


41,500,053 


8,219,848 


422,598,640 


1,532,637 


667,486 


17,568,003 


12,643,228 


1,861,336 


06,106,509 


4,897,385 


920.178 

$•56,990,237 


30,170,131 


^^•286,376, 541 


$2,233,058 619 



TxVBLK NO. XIX. 

VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE SLAVE STATEb 

—1850. 



States. 


Value of 


Val. of Animals 


CashVal. of Farm?, 


Live Stock. 


Slaughtered. 


Farm. Imp. &. Mac. 


Alabama 


S21. 690.112 


$4,823,485 


$09,448,887 


Arkansas 


6,647,909 


1,163,313 


10,800,541 


Delaware 


1,849,281 


373,665 


19,390,310 


Florida 


2,880,058 


514,085 


0.981,904 


Georgia 


25,728,416 


0,339,702 


101.047,595 


Kentucky 


29,661,436 


6,402.598 


100,190,290 


Louisiana 


11,152,275 


1,458,990 


87,391,336 


Maryland 


7,997,634 


1.954,800 


89,041.988 


i^Iississippi 


19,403,602 


3,630,582 


60.501.561 


Jlissouri 


19,887,580 


3,367,106 


67,207 068 


North Carolina.. . 


17.717,617 


5,767,800 


71,823.298 


South Carolina., . 


15,000.015 


3,502,637 


86,568,038 


Teimessee 


29,978,016 


0,401,705 


103.211,422 


Texas . 


10,412.927 


1,116.137 


18.701.712 


Viro'iiia 


33,656-.659 


7,502.986 


223.423.315 



S253,7 23,687 So4,388,377 SI, 183,91)5,271 



T2 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

RECAPITULATION FREE STATES. 

Value of live Stock $286,376,541 

Value of Animals slaughtered, 66,990,237 

Value of Farms, Farming-Implements and Machinery, 2,233,058,619 

S2,676,425,397 

RECAPITULATION SLAVE STATES. 

Value of Live Stock $253,723,687 

Value of Animals slaughtered 64,388,377 

Value of Farms, Farming Implements and Machinery, 1,183,995,274 

$1,492,107,338 

DIFFERENCE IN VALUE FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

FroeStates, $2,576,425,397 

Slave States 1,492,107,338 

Balance in favor of the Free States $1,084,318,069 

By adding to this last balance in favor of the free States 
the differences in value which we found in their favor in 
our account of the bushel-and-pound-measure products, we 
shall have a very correct idea of the extent to which the 
undivided agricultural interests of the free States prepon- 
derate over those of the slave States. Let us add the dif- 
ferences together, and see what will be the result. 

BALANCES ALL IN FAVOR OF THE NORTH. 

Dilference in the value of bushel-measure products.. $44,782,636 
Difference in the value of pound-measure products.. 59,190,108 
Difference in the value of farms and domestic animals 1,084,318,059 

Total $1,188,299,803 

\o figures of rhetoric can add emphasis or significance 
to these figures of arithmetic. They demonstrate conclu- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATE3. t3 

Bively the great moral triumph of Liberty ov^er Slavery. 
They show unequivocally, in spite of all the blarney and 
boasting of slave-driving politicia us, that the entire value 
of all the agricultural interests of the free States is very 
nearly twice as great as the entire value of all the agricul- 
tural interests of the slave States — the value of those in- 
terests in the former being twenty-five hundred million of 
dollars, that of those in the latter only fourteen hundred 
million, leaving a balance in favor of the free States of 
VTie hillion one. hundred and eighty-eight million two hundred and 
ninety-nine thousand eight hundred, and three dollars ! That is 
what we call a full, fair and complete vindication of Free 
Labor. Would we not be correct in calling it a total 
eclipse of the Black Orb ? Can it be possible that the 
slavocracy . will ever have the hardihood to open their 
mouths again on the subject of terra-culture in the South ? 
Dare they ever think of cotton again ? Ought they not, 
as a befitting confession of their crimes and misdemeanors, 
and as a reasonable expiation for the countless evils which 
they have inflicted on society, to clothe themselves in 
sackcloth, and, after a suitable season of contrition and 
severe penance, follow the example of one Judas Iscariot, 
and go and hang themselves ? 

It will be observed that we have omitted the Territories 
and the District of Columbia in all the preceding tables. 
We did this purposely. Our object was to draw an equi- 
table comparison between the value of free and slave labor 
in the thirty-one sovereign States, where the two systems, 
comparatively unaffected by the wrangling of politicians, 
and, as a matter of course, free from the interference of 



14 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

the general government, have had the fuUcbt opportunities 
to exert their influence, to exhibit their virtues, and to 
commend themselves to the sober judgments of enlightened 
and discriminating minds. Had we counted the Territories 
on the side of the North, and the District of Columbia on 
the side of the South, the result would have been still 
greater in behalf of free labor. Though " the sum of all 
villanies" has but a mere nominal existence in Delaware 
and Maryland, we have invariably counted those States on 
the side of the South ; and the consequence is, that, in 
many particulars, the hopeless fortunes of slavery have 
been propped up and sustained by an imposing array of 
figures which of right ought to be regarded as the property 
of freedom. But we like to be generous to an unfortunate 
foe, and would utterly disdain the use of any unfair means 
of attack or defence. 

We shall take no undue advantage of slavery. It shall 
have a fair trial, and be judged according to its deserts-. 
Already has it been weighed in the balance, and found 
wanting ; it has been measured in the half-bushel, and 
found wanting ; it has been apprized in the field, and found 
wanting. Whatever redeeming traits or qualities it may 
possess, if any, shall be brought to light by subjecting it 
to other tests. 

It was our desire and intention to furnish a con-ect table 
of the gallon-measiu'c products of the several States of the 
Union ; but we have not been successful in our attempt to 
procure the necessary statistics. Enough is known, how- 
ever, to satisfy us that the value cf the milk, wine, ardent 
spirits, malt liquors, fluids, oils, and molasses, anmially 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 15 

produced and sold in the free States, is at east fifty mil- 
lions of dollars greater than the value of the same articles 
annually produced and sold in the slave States. Of sweet 
milk alone, it is estimated that the monthly sales in three 
Northern cities, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, 
amount to a larger sum than the marketable value of all 
the rosin, tar, pitch, and turpentine, annually produced in 
the Southern States. 

Our efforts to obtain reliable information respecting 
another very important branch of profitable industry, the 
lumber business, have also proved unavailing ; and we are 
left to conjecture as to the amount of revenue annually 
derived from it in the two grand divisions of our country. 
The person whose curiosity prompts him to take an 
account of the immense piles of Northern lumber now lying 
on the wharves and houseless lots in Baltimore, Eichmond, 
and other slaveholding cities, will not, we imagine, form 
a very flattering opinion of the products of Southern for 
ests. Let it be remembered that nearly all the clippers, 
steamers, and small craft, are built at the North ; that 
large cargoes of Eastern lumber are exported to foreign 
countries ; that nine-tenths of the wooden-ware used in the 
Southern States is manufactured in New England ; that, 
in outrageous disregard of the natural rights and claims 
of Southern mechanics, the markets of the South are for- 
ever filled with Northern furniture, vehicles, ax helves, 
walking canes, yard-sticks, clothes-pins and pen-holders 
that the extraordinary number of factories, sicam-cngines, 
forges and machine-she ps in the free States, require an 
extraordinary quantity of cord-wood ; that a large majority 



16 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

of the magnificent edifices and other structures, Doth 
private and public, in which timber, in its various forms, 
is extensively used, are to be found in the free States — 
we say, let all these things be remembered, and the truth 
will at once flash across the mind that the forests of the 
North are a source of far greater income than those of the 
South. The difference is simply this ; At the North every- 
thing is turned to advantage. When a tree is cut down, 
the main body is sold or used for lumber, railing or paling, 
the stump for matches and shoepegs, the knees for ship- 
building, and the branches for fuel. At the South every- 
thing is either neglected or mismanaged. Whole forests 
are fell5d by the ruthless hand of slavery, the trees are 
cut into logp., rolled into heaps, covered with the limbs 
and brush, and then burned on the identical soil that gave 
them birth. The land itself next falls a prey to the fell 
destroyer, and that which was once a beautiful, fertile and 
luxuriant v»"oodland, is soon despoiled of all its treasures, 
and converted into an eye-offending desert. 

Were we to go beneath the soil and collect all the min- 
eral and lapidarious wealth of the free States, we should 
find it so much greater than the corresponding wealth of 
the slave States, that no ordinary combination cf figures 
would suffice to express the difference. To say nothing 
of the gold and quicksilver of California, the iro:^ and coal 
of Pennsylvania, the copper of Michigan, the lead of Illi- 
nois, or the salt of New-York, the marble and free-stone quar- 
ries of New England are, incredible as it may seem to those unac- 
qiiainted with the facts, far more important sources of revenue 
than all the subterranean deposits in the slave States. From the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. ft 

most reliable statictics within our reach, we are led to the 
inference that the total value of all the precious metals, 
rocks, minerals, and medicinal waters, annually extracted 
from the bowels of the free States, is not less than eighty- 
five million of dollars ; the whole value of the same sub- 
stances annually brought up from beneath the surface of 
the slave States does not exceed twelve millions. In this 
respect to what is our poverty ascribable ? To the same 
cause that has impoverished and dishonored us in all other 
respects — the thriftless and degrading institution of 
slavery. 

Nature has been kind to us in all things. The strata 
and substrata of the South are profusely enriched with 
gold and silver, and precious stones, and from the natural 
orifices and aqueducts in Virgina and North Carolina, flow 
the purest healing waters in the world. But of what avail 
is all this latent wealth ? Of what avail will it ever be, 
so long as slavery is permitted to play the dog in the 
manger ? To these queries there can be but one reply. 
Slavery must be suppressed ; the South, so great and so 
glorious by nature, must be reclaimed from her infamy 
and degradation ; our cities, fields and forests, must be 
kept intact from the unsparing monste: ; the various 
and ample resources of our vast domain, subterrai ecus as 
well as superficial, must be developed, and made to con- 
tribute to our pleasures and to the necessities of the 
world. 

A very significant chapter, and one particularly perti- 
nent to many of the preceding pages, might be written 
on the Decline of Agriculture in the Slave States ; but as 



78 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

the press of other subjects admonishes us to be concise 
upon this point, we shall present only a few of the more 
striking instances. In the first place, let us compare the 
crops of wheat and r^^e in Kentuck}^, in 1850, with the 
corresponding crops in the same State in 1840 — after 
which, we will apply a similar rule of comparison to two 
or three other slaveholding states. 

KENTUCKY. 

Wheat, bus. Rye, bus. 

Crop of 1840 4,803,152 1,321,873 

" "1850 2,142,822 415,073 

Decrease 2,G60,330 bus. Decrease 906,300 bus. 

TENNESSEE. 

Wheat, bus. Tobacco, lbs. 

Crop of 1840 4,569,692 29,550,432 

" " 1850 1,619,386 20,148,932 

Decrease 2,950,306 bus. Decrease 9,401,500 lbs. 

VIRGINIA. 

Rye, bus. Tobacco, lbs. 

Crop of 1840 1,482,799 75,347,106 

« " 1850 458,930 56,803,227 

Decrease 1,023,869 bus. Decrease 18,543,879 lbs. 

ALABAMA. 

Wheat, bus. Rye,bus. 

Crop of 1810 838,052 51,000 

" " 1850 294,044 17,261 

Decrease 544,008 bus. Decrease 33,739 bus. 

The story of these figures is too intelligible to require 
words of explanation ; we shall, therefore, drop this part 



FREE A\D THE SLAVE STATES. 79 

of our subject, and proceed to compile a couple of tables 
that will exhibit on a single page the wealth, revenue and 
expenditure, of the several states of the confederacy. Let 
it be distinctly understood, however, that, in the compila- 
tion of these tables, three million two hundred and four 
thousand three hundred and thirteen negroes are valued 
as personal property, and credited to the Southern States 
as if they were so many horses and asses, or bridles and 
blankets — and that no monetary valuation whatever is 
placed on any creature, of any age, colcr, sex or condi- 
tion, that bears the upright form of man in the free States. 



80 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE xVO. XX. 

WEALTH, REVENUE ANI> EXPENIITURE OF THE FREE STATES-— 

1850. 



states. 


Real and Personal 
property. 


Revenue. 


Expenditure. 


•California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 


$22,161,872 

155,707,980 

156,265,006 

202,650.264 

23,714,638 

122,777,571 

573.342,286 

59,787,255 

103,652,835 

153,151,619 

1,080,309,216 

501,726,120 

729,144,998 

80,508,794 

92,205,049 

42,056,595 


$366,825 

150,189 

736,030 

1,283,064 

139,681 

744,879 

598,170 

548,326 

141,686 

139,160 

2,698,310 

3,016,403 

7,716,552 

124,944 

185,830 

135,155 


$925,625 
137,326 
^92,940 


Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 


1,061,605 
131,631 
624,101 


Massachusetts... . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania . 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 


674,622 

431,918 

149,890 

180,614 

2,520,932 

2,736,060 

6,876,480 

115,835 

183,058 

136,096 




$4,102,172,108 


$18,725,211 


$17,076,733 



TABLE NO. XXI. 

WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE SLAVE STATES 

1850. 



States. 


Real and I'ersonal 
property. 


Revenue. 


Expenditure. 


Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina.. . 
South Carolina. . . 

Tennessee 

Texas 


$228,204,332 

39,841,025 

18,855,863 

23,198,734 

335,425,714 

301,628,456 

233,998,764 

219,217,364 

228,951,130 

137,247,707 

226,800,472 

288,257,694 

207,454,704 

55,362,340 

391,646,438 


$658,976 
68,412 

60,619 

1,142,405 

779,293 

1,146,568 

1,279,953 

221,200 

326,579 

219,000 

532,152 

502,126 

140,688 

1,265,744 


$513,559 
74,076 

55,234 
597,882 
674,697 
1,098,911 
1,360,458 
223,637 
207,656 
228,173 
463,021 
623,625 
156,622 


Virginia 


1,272,382 




$2,936,090,737 


$8,343,715 


$7,549,933 



jbitEE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 81 

Entire Wealth of the Free States, S4, 02,172,108 

Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, 2,S36,090,737 



Balance in favor of the Free States, SI, 160,081, 371 

What a towering monument to the beauty and glory cf 
Free Labor I What h-refragable evidence of the unequaled 
efficacy and grandeur of free institutions I These figures 
are, indeed, too full of meaning to be passed by without 
comment. The two tables from which they are borrowed 
are at least a volume within themselves ; and, after all the 
pains we have taken to compile them, we shall, perhaps, 
feel somewhat disappointed if the reader fails to avail him 
self of the important information they impart. 

Human life, in all ages, has been made up of a series of 
adventures and experiments, and even at this stage of the 
world's existence, we are almost as destitute of a perfect 
rule of action, secular or religious, as were the erratic co- 
temporaries of Noah. It is true, however, that we have 
made some progress in the right direction ; and as it seems 
to be the tendency of the world to correct itself, we may 
suppose that future generations will be enabled, by intui- 
tion, to discriminate between the true and the false, the 
good and the bad, and that with the development of this fac- 
ulty of the mind, error and discord will begin to wane, and 
finally cease to exist. Of all the experiments that have 
been tried by the people in America, slavery has proved 
the most fatal ; and the sooner it is abolished the better it 
will be for us, for posterity, and for the world. One ol 
the evils resulting from it, and that not the least, is ap- 
parent in the figures above. Indeed, the unprojitabkiiess of 

4* 



ba COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

slavery is a monstrous evil, when considered in all its 
bearings ; it makes us poor ; poverty makes us ignorant ; 
ignorance makes us wretched ; wretchedness makes ua 
wicked, and wickedness leads to the devil I 

"Ignorance is the curse of God, 

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." 

Facts truly astounding are disclosed in the two last 
tables, and we could heartily wish that every intelligent 
American would commit them to memory. The total 
value of all the real and personal property of the free 
States, with an area of only 612,59*1 square miles, is one 
billion one hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thou- 
sand three hundred and seventy-one dollars greater than 
the total value of all the real and personal property, in- 
cluding the price of 3,204,313 negroes, of the slave States, 
which have an area of 851,508 square miles I But extra- 
ordinary as this difference is in favor of the North, it is 
much less than the true amount. On the autJwrity of South- 
rons themselves, it is demonstrahle beyond the possibility of refur 
tatiuii that the intrinsic vahie of all the property in the free States 
is more than three times greater than the intrinsic valice of all the 
property in the slave States. 

James Madison, a Southern man, fourth President of the 
United States, a most correct thinker, and one of the 
greatest statesmen the country has produced, " thought it 
wrong to admit the idea that there could be property in 
man," and we indorse, to the fullest extent, this opinion of 
the profound editor of the Federalist. We shall not recog- 
nize property in man ; tlie slaves of the South are not 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STA.ES. 83 

worth a groat in any civilized community ; no man cf gen- 
uine decency and refinement would hold them as property 
on any terms ; in the eyes of all enlightened nations and 
individuals, they are men, not merchandize. Southern 
pro-slavery politicians, some of whom have not hesitated 
to buy and sell thcir^wn sons and daughters, boast that 
the slaves of the South are woith sixteen hundred million 
of dollars, and we have seen the amount estimated as high 
as two thousand million. Mr. De Bow, the Southern su- 
perintendent of the seventh census, informs, us that the 
value of all the property in the slave States, real and per- 
sonal, including slaves, was, in 1850, only $2,936,090,*l3t; 
while, according to the same authority, the value of all 
the real and personal property in the free- States, genuine 
property, property that is everywhere recognized as pro- 
perty, was, at the same time, $4,102,172,108. Now all 
we have to do in order to ascertain the real value of all 
the property of the South, independent of negroes, whose 
value, if valuable at all, is of a local and precarious char- 
acter, is to subtract from the sum total of Mr. De Bow's 
return of the entire wealth of the slave States the estima- 
ted value of the slaves themselves ; and then, by deduct- 
ing the difference from the intrinsic value of all the pro- 
perty in the free States, we shall have the exact amount 
of the overplus of wealth in the glorious land of free soil, 
free labor, free speech, free presses, and free schools. 
And now to the task. 

Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves $2,9^6,090,737 
Estimated Value of the Slaves, 1,600,000,000 

True Wealth of the Slave States, Sl,336,090,737 



84 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

True Wealth of the Free States, 84:102,172.108 

True Wealth oC the Slave States, 1,336,090,737 

Balance in favor of the Free States, . . $2,766,081,371 

There, friends of the South and of the North, you have 
the conclusion of the whole matter. Liberty and slavery 
arc before you ; choose which you will have ; as for us, io 
the memorable language of the immortal Henry, we say, 
" give us liberty, or give us death !" In the great struggle 
for wealth that has been going on between the two rival 
systems of free and slave labor, the balance above exhibits 
the net profits of the former. The struggle on the one side 
has been calm, laudable, and eminently successful ; on the 
other, it has been attended by tumult, unutterable cruelties 
and disgraceful failure. We have given the slave drivers 
every conceivable opportunity to vindicate their domestic 
policy, but for them to do it is a moral impossibility. 

Less than three-quarters of a century ago — say in 1789, 
for that was about the average time of the abolition of 
slavery in the Northern States — tlie South, with advan 
tages in soil, climate, rivers, harbors, minerals, forests, 
and, indeed, almost every other natural resource, began an 
even race with the North in all the important pursuits of 
life ; and now, in the brief space of scarce three score 
years and ten, we find her completely distanced, enervated, 
dejected and dishonored. Slave-drivers are the sole authors 
of her disgrace ; as they have sown so let them reap. 

As we have seen above, a careful and correct inventory 
of all the real and personal property in the two grand divi- 
sions of the country, discloses the astounding fact that, in 
1850, the frf^o States were worth precisely two thousand 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STAFES. 8S 

seven hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thousa^i.d tlree hun- 
dred and seventy-one dollars more than the slave States I 
T\s enty-seven hundred and sixty-six million of dollars !— 
Think of it I What a vast and desirable sum, and how 
much better off the South v^ould be with it than without 
it ! Such is the enormous amount out of which slavery 
has defrauded us during the space of sixty-one years— 
from 1^89 to 1850— being an average of about forty-five 
million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum. 
During the last twenty-five or thirty years, however, oui 
annual losses have been far greater than they were form- 
erly. There has been a gradual increase every year, and 
now the ratio of increase is almost incredible. No patri- 
otic Southerner can become conversant with the facts 
without experiencing a feeling of alarm and indignation. 
Until the North abolished slavery, she had no advantage 
of us whatever ; the South w^as more than her equal in 
every respect. But no sooner had she got rid of that 
hampering and pernicious institution than she began to 
absorb our wealth, and now it is confidently believed that 
the merchants and negro-driving pleasure-seekers of the 
South annually pour one hundred and twenty million of 
dollars into her coffers I Taking into account, then, the 
probable amount of money that has been drawn from the 
South and invested in the North within the last six years, 
and adding it to the grand balance above — the net profits 
of the North up to 1850— it may be safely assumed that, 
in the present year of grace, 1851, the free States are worth 
at least thirty-four hundred million of dollars more than the slavt 
States ! Lot him who dares, gainsay these remarks and 



86 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



calculations ; no truthful tongue will deny them ; ao hon- 
orable pen can controvert them. 

One more word now as to the valuation of negroes. 
Were our nature so degraded, or our conscience so elastic 
as to permit us to set a price upon men, as we would set 
a price upon cattle and corn, we should be content to abide 
by the appraisement of the slaves of the South, and would 
then enter into a calculation to ascertain the value of for- 
eigners to the North. Not long since, it was declared in 
the South that " one free laborer is equal to five slaves," 
and as there are two million five hundred thousand Euro- 
peans in the free States, all of whom are free laborers, we 
might bring Southern authority to back us in estimating 
their value at sixty-two hundred million of dollars — a hand 
some sum wherewithal to offset the account of sixteen hun- 
drcd million of dollars, brought forward as the value of 
Southern slaves ! It is obvious, therefore, that if we were 
disposed to follow the barbarian example of the traffick- 
ers in human flesh, w^e could prove the North vastly 
richer than the South in bone and sinew — to say nothing 
of mind and morals, which shall receive our attention 
hereafter. The North has just as good a right to appraise 
the Irish immigrant, as the South has to set a price on 
the African slave. But as it would be wrong to do either, 
we shall do neither. It is not our business to think of 
man as a merchantable commodity ; and we will not, even 
by implication, admit "the wild and guilty fantasy," 
that the condition of chatteltiood may rightfully attach to 
sentient and immortal beings. 

In thi« connection, we would direct the special atten- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATc,S. 87 

tion of the reader to the following eloquent passage, ex- 
hibiting the philosophy of free and slave labor, from the 
facile pen of the editor of the North American and ZTnited 
States Gazette : 

" In the very nature of things, the freeman must pro- 
duce more than the slave. There is no conclusion of 
science more certain. Under a system which gives to a 
laboring man the fruit of his toil, there is every motive to 
render him diligent and assiduous. If he relies on being 
employed by others, his wages rise with his reputation for 
industry, skill, and faithfulness. And as owner of the 
soil, there is every assurance that he will do what he can 
to cultivate it to the best advantage, and develope its la- 
tent wealth. Self-interest will call forth what powers of 
intellect and of invention he has to aid him in his work, 
and employ his physical strength to the greatest possible 
advantage. Free labor receives an immediate reward, 
which cheers and invigorates it ; and above all, it has 
that chief spring of exertion, hope, whose bow always 
spans the heaven before it. It has an inviolate hearth ; 
it has a home. But it looks forward to a still better con- 
dition, to brighter prospects in the future, to which its 
efforts all contribute. The children in such a household 
are chief inducements to nerve the arm of labor, that they 
may be properly cared for, fed, clothed, educated, accom- 
plished, instructed in some useful and honorable calling, 
and provided for when they shall go out upon the world. 
All its sentiments, religious and otherwise, all its affeo 
tions for parents and kindred, all its tastes are so many 
impelling and stimulating forces. It is disposed to read, 



88 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

to ornament its home, to travel, to enjoy social intercourse, 
and to attain these ends, it rises to higher exertions and 
a stricter economy of time ; it explores every path of em- 
ployment, and is, therefore, in the highest degree produc- 
tive. 

" How different is it with slave labor I The slave toils 
for another, and not for himself. Whether he does little 
or much, whether his work is well or ill performed, he has 
a subsistence, nothing less, nothing more ; and why should 
he toil beyond necessity ? He cannot accumulate any 
property for the decline of his years, or to leave to his 
children when he is departed. Nay, he cannot toil to bet- 
ter the present condition of his children. They belong to 
another, and not to him. He cannot supply his hut with 
comforts, or embellish it with the adornments of taste. 
He does not read. He does not journey for pleasure. In- 
ducements to exertion', he has none. That he may adapt 
himself to his condition, and enjoy the present hour, he 
deadens those aspirations that must always be baffled in 
liis case, and sinks down into ease and sensuality. His 
mind is unlightcd and untutored ; dark with ignorance. 
Among those wliu value him most, he is proverbially in- 
dolent, thievish, and neglectful of his master's interests. 
It is common for even the advocates of slavery to declare 
that one freeman is worth half a dozen slaves. With every 
cord to exertion thus sundered, the mind benighted, the 
man nearly lost in the animal, it requires no deep philoso- 
])liy to see why labor cannot be near as productive as it 
would be were ihese conditions all reversed. Though 
ever so well directed by the superior skill, and urged for- 



FREE AND THE S. AVE STATES 89 

ward by the strong arm of the master, slave lalor is 
necessarily a blight to the soil — sterility follows in its 
steps, and not afar oif. 

" What a difference, plain and heaven-wide, between the 
outward and interior life of a slave and of a free commu- 
nity, resulting directly and palpably from this difference 
in its labor. The cottage-home, amid trees and shrubbery, 
its apartments well adorned and furnished, books on its 
shelves, and the passing literature of the day scattered 
around ; the few, perhaps, but well-tilled acres, belonging 
to the man who tills them ; the happy children with sunny 
prospects ; the frequent school ; the church arrayed with 
beauty ; the thriving, handsome village ; the flourishing 
cities and prosperous marts of trade ; the busy factories ; 
railroads, traffic, travel — where free labor tills the ground, 
how beautiful it all is in contrast to the forlorn and dreary 
aspect of a country tilled by slaves. The villages of such 
a country are mainly groups of miserable huts. Its com- 
paratively few churches are too often dilapidated and un- 
sightly. The common school-house, the poor man's col- 
lege, is hardly known, showing how little interest is felt 
in the chief treasures of the State, the immortal minds of 
the multitude who are not born to wealth. The signs of 
premature old age are visibly impressed upon everything 
that meets the eye. The fields present a dread monotony. 
Everywhere you see lands that are worn out, barren and 
deserted, in consequence of slave tillage, left fcr morefer* 
tile lands in newer regions, which are also, in their turn, 
to be smitten with sterility and forsaken. The fice com- 
munity may increase its population almost without limit. 



90 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

The capacity of slave countries to sustain a population is 
soon at an end, and then it dimirishes. In all the elements 
of essential prosperity, in all that elevates man, how strik- 
ing the contrast between the region that is tilled by slave, 
and the region that is tilled by free labor." 

For the purpose of showing what Virginia, once the 
richest, most populous, and most powerful of the States, 
has become under the blight of slavery, we shall now in- 
troduce an extract from one of the speeches delivered by 
Henry A. Wise, during the last gubernatorial campaign 
in that degraded commonwealth. Addressing a Virginia 
audience, in language as graphic as it is truthful, he 
says : — 

" Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed 
away from you. You have not, as yet, dug more than 
coal enough to warm yourselves at your own hearths; you 
have set no tilt-hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy 
of gods in your own iron-foundries ; you have not yet spun 
more than coarse cotton enough, in the way of manufac- 
ture, to clothe your own slaves. You have no commerce, 
no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone on 
the single power of agriculture, and such agriculture ! Your 
sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to 
your only source of wealth, has seared the very bosom of 
mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thou- 
sand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer 
through the sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak. 
The present condition of things has existed too long in 
Virginia The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 91 

tenant has skinned the land, until all have grt wn poor 
together." 

With tears in its eyesj and truth on its lips, for the first 
time after an interval of twenty years, the Richmond En- 
quirer helps to paint the melancholy picture. Tn 1852, that 
journal thus bewailed the condition of Virginia : — 

" We have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Phil- 
adelphia herself contains a population far greater than 
the whole free population of Eastern Virginia. The little 
State of Massachusetts has an aggregate wealth exceed- 
ing that of Virginia by more than $126,000,000.'' 

Just a score of years before these words were penned, the 
same paper, then edited by the elder Ritchie, made a most 
earnest appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of Virgi- 
nia, to adopt an effectual measure for the speedy over- 
throw of the damnable institution of human bondage 
Here is an extract from an article which appeared in its 
editorial column under date of January tth, 1832 : 

" Something must be done, and it is the part of no 
honest man to deny it — of no free press to affect to con- 
coal it. When this dark population is growing upon us ; 
when every new census is but gathering its appalling 
numbers upon us ; when, within a period equal to that in 
which this Federal Constitution has been in existence, 
these numbers will increase to more than two millions 
within Virginia ; when our sister States are closing their 
doors upon our blacks for sale, and when our whites are 
moving westwardly in greater numbers than we like to 
hear of when this, the fairest land on all this continent, 
for soil, and climate and situation, combined, might be 



92 COMF.vRISON BETWEEN THE 

come a sort of garden spot, if it were worked y the lands 
of white men alone, can we, ought we, to sit quietly down, 
fold our arms, and say to each other, ' Well, well ; this 
thing will not come to the worst in our days ; we will 
leave it to our children, and our grandchildren, and great- 
grandchildren, to take care of themselves, and to brave 
the storm 1' Is this to act like wise men ? Means, surt 
but gradual, s^^stematic but discreet, ought to be adopted 
for reducing the mass of evil which is pressing upon the 
South, and will still more press upon her, the longer it is 
put off. We say now, in the utmost sincerity of our hearts, 
that our wisest men cannot give too much of their atten- 
tion to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." 
■ Better abolition doctrine than this is seldom heard. 
Why did not the ^nqurier continue to preach it ? What 
potent influence hushed its clarion voice, just as it began 
to be lifted in behalf of a liboral policy and an enlightened 
humanity ? Had Mr. Ritchie continued to press the truth 
home to the hearts of the people, as he should have done, 
Virginia, instead of being worth only $392,000,000 in 1850 
— negroes and all — would have been worth at least $800,- 
000,000 in genuine property ; and if the State had eman- 
cipated her slaves at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, the last census would no doubt have reported her 
wealth, and correctly, at a sum exceeding a thousand 

millions of dollars. 

i 

Listen now to the statement of a momentous faef. The 
value of all the property, real and personal, including 
slaves, in seven slave States, Virginia, North Carolina.^ 
Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, is less 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 93 

than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable 
property, in the single State of New-York Nay, worse; 
if eight entire slave States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, 
Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and 
the District of Columbia — with all their hordes of human 
merchandize — were put up at auction. New- York ^could 
buy them all, and then have one hundred and thirty-three 
millions of dollars left in her pocket 1 Such is the amaz- 
ing contrast between freedom and slavery, even in a pe- 
cuniary point of view. When we come to compare the 
North with the South in regard to literature, general in- 
telligence, inventive genius, moral and religious enterprises, 
the discoveries in medicine, and the progress in the arts 
and sciences, we shall, in every instance, find the con- 
trast equally great on the side of Liberty. 

It gives us no pleasure to say hard th ings of the Old 
Dominion, the mother of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, 
and other illustrious patriots, who, as we shall prove here- 
after, were genuine abolitionists ; but the policy which she 
has pursued has been so utterl}^ inexcusable, so unjust to 
the non-slaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and 
so disregardful of the rights of humanity at large, that it 
becomes the duty of every one who makes allusion to her 
history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her poverty, 
and to publish every fact, of whatever nature, tl.;at would 
be instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad 
example. She has wilfully departed from the faith of the 
founders of this Eepublic. She has not only turned a deaf 
ear to the counsel of wise men from other States in the 
Union, bul she has, in like manner, ignored the teachings 



94 COMPARISON BETWE^xV THE 

of the great warriors and statesmen who have spruL j,' from 
her own soil. Tin a subsequent chapter, we expect to show -. 
that all, or nearly all, the distinguished Virginians, whose 
bodies have been consigned to the grave, but whose names 
have been given to history, and whose memoirs have a 
place in the hearts of their countrymen, were the friends m 
and advocates of universal freedom — that they were inflex- 
ibly opposed to the extension of slavery into the Territories, 
devised measures for its restriction, and, with hopeful 
anxiety, looked forward to the time when it should be 
eradicated from the States themselves. With them, the 
rescue of our country from British domination, and the 
establishment of the General Government upon a firm basis, 
were considerations of paramount importance ; they sup- 
posed, and no doubt earnestly desired, that the States, in 
their sovereign capacities, would soon abolish an institu-* 
tion which was so palpably in conflict with the principles 
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, it 
would seem that, among the framers of that immortal 
instrument and its equally immortal sequel, the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, there was a tacit understanding 
to this eflect ; and the Northern States, true to their 
implied faith, abolished it within a short period after oui 
national independence had been secured. Not so with the 
South. She has pertinaciously refused to perform her duty, 
She has apostatized from the faith of her greatest men, and 
even at this very moment repudiates the sacred principle 
that " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights," among which " are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of ] ippiness " It is evident, thcrofore, that 



FREE AND THE SLAVE SfATES. 95 

the free States are the only members of this confetleraGy 
that have established republican forms of government 
based upon the theories of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Ilenry, and other eminent statesmen of Virginia. 

The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot 
in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county. North Carolina, on the 
20th day of May, 1175, has not yet been terminated, nor 
will it be, until every slave in the United States is freed 
from the tyranny of his master. Every victim of the vile 
institution, whether white or black, must be reinvested 
with the sacred rights and privileges of which he has been 
deprived by an inhuman oligarchy. What our noble sires 
of the revolution left unfinished it is our duty to complete. 
They did all that true valor and patriotism could accom- 
plish. Not one iota did they swerve from their plighted 
faith ; the self-sacrificing spirit which they evinced will 
command the applause of every succeeding age. Not in 
vindication of their own personal rights mercl^^ but of the 
rights of humanity ; not for their own generation and age 
simply, but for all ages to the end of time, they gave their 
toil, their treasure and their blood, nor deemed them all 
too great a price to pay for the establishment of so com- 
prehensive and beneficent a principle. Let their posterity 
emulate their courage, their disinterestedness, and their 
zeal^ and especially remember that it is the duty of every 
existing generation so to provide for its individual inter- 
ests, as to confer superior advantages on that which is to 
follow. To this principle the North has adhered with the 
strictest fidelity. How has it been with the South ? Has 
she iiVtated the praiseworthy example of our Ulu?triou9 



96 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

ancestors ? No ! She has treated it with the utmost 
contempt ; she has been extremely selfish — so selfish, 
indeed, that she has robbed posterity of its natural rights. 
From the period of the formation of the goveriMnent down 
to the present moment, her policy has been downright sui- 
cidal, and, as a matter of course, wholly indefensible. She 
has hugged a viper to her breast ; her whole system has 
been paralyzed, her conscience is seared, and she is 
becoming callous to every principle of justice and magnar 
nimity. Except among the non-slaveholders, who, besides 
/jpeing kept in the grossest ignorance, are under the 
restraint of all manner of iniquitous laws, patriotism has 
ceased to exist within her borders. And Jiere we desire 
to be distinctly understood, for we shall have occasion to 
refer to this matter again. We repeat, therefore, the sub- 
stance of our averment, that, at this day, there is not a 
grain of patriotism in the South, except among the non- 
slaveholders. Subsequent pages shall testify to the truth 
of this assertion. Here and there, it is true, a slaveholder, 
disgusted with the institution, becomes ashamed of him- 
self, emancipates his negroes, and enters upon the walks 
of honorable life ; but these cases are exceedingly rare, and 
do not, in any manner, disprove the general correctness of 
our remark. All persons who do voluntarily manumit 
their slaves, as mentioned above, are undeniably actuated 
by principles of pure patriotism, justice and humanity ; 
and so believing, we delight to do them honor. 
( Once more to the Old Dominion. At her door we lay 

V the bulk of the evils of slavery. The first African sold in 
America was sold on James River, in that State, an the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 91 

20tli of A igiist, 1620 ; and although the institution was 
fastened upon her and the other colonics by the mothei 
country, she was the first to perceive its blighting and 
degrading influences, her wise men were the first to de-» 
nt'uncG it, and, after the British power was overthrown at 
Yr^rk Town, she should have been the first to abolish it, 
Fifty-seven years ago she was the Empire State ; now, 
with half a dozen other slaveholding states thrown into 
the scale with her, she is far inferior to New- York, which, 
at the time Cornwallis surrendered his sword to Washing- 
ton, was less than half her equal. Had she obeyed the 
counsels of the good, the great and the wise men of our 
nation — especially of her own incomparable sons, the ex- 
tendible element of slavery would have been promptly 
arrested, and the virgin soil of nine Southern States, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Mis- 
souri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, would have been 
saved from its horrid pollutions. Confined to the original 
states in which it existed, the institution would soon have 
been disposed of by legislative enactments, and long be- 
fore the present day, by a gradual process that could have 
shocked no interest and alarmed no prejudice, we should 
have rid ourselves not only of African slavery, which is 
an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes them- 
selves, who, in our judgment, whether viewed in relation 
to their actual characteristics and condition, or through 
the strong antipathies of the whites, are, to say the least, 
an undesirable population. 

This, then, is the ground of our expostulation with Vir- 
ginia : that, in stubborn disregard of the advice and 



08 COMPARISON B I VEEN THE 

friendly warnings of Washington, Jefferson, Maclisoc, 
Henry, and a host of other distinguished patriots who 
sprang from her soil — patriots v/hose voices shall be 
hgard before we finish our task — and in utter violation 
of every principle of justice and humanity, she still ^persists 
in fostering an institution which is so manifestly detri- 
mental to her vital interests. Every Virginian, whether 
living or dead, whose name is an honor to his country, has 
placed on record his abhorrence of slavery, and in doing 
0, has borne testimony to the blight and degradation that 
verywhere follow in its course. One of the best aboli- 
ion speeches we have ever read was delivered in the Vir- 
^nia House of Delegates, January 20tli, 1832, by Charles 
James Faulkner, who still lives, and who has, we under- 
stand, generously emancipated several of his slaves, and 
sent them to Liberia. Here follows an extract from hia 
speech ; let Southern politicians read it attentively, and 
imbibe a moiety of the spirit of patriotism which it 
breathes : — 

" Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has 
yet risen in this Hall, the avowed advocate of slavery. 
The, day has gone hy whefn such a voice could be listenied to with 
'patience, or even with forlsaran^ce. I even regret,^ Sir, that 
we should find those amongst us who eater the lists of 
discussion as its a-pclogists, except alone upon the ground 
of uncontrollable necessity. And yet, who could have 
listened to the very eloquent remarks of the gentleman 
from Brunswick, without being forced to conclude; that he 
at least considered slavery, however not to be defended upom 
principle, yet as being divested of much of its enormity, aa 
you approa ^h it iiv practice. 



PREE AND THE SLAVE STALES. 99 

" Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gei tleraan 
in the harmless character of this institution, let me re- 
(juest him to compare the condition of the slaveholding 
portion of this commonwealth — barren, desolate, and seared 
as it were by the avenging hand of Heaven — with the descrip- 
tions which we have of this country from those who first 
broke its virgin soil. To what is this change ascribable ? 
Atom to the withering and blasting effects of slaveiy. If this 
does not satisfy him, let me request him to extend his 
travels to the Northern States of this Union, and beg him 
to contrast the happiness and contentment which prevail 
throughout that country, the busy and cheerful sound of 
industry, the rapid and swelling growth of their popula- 
tion, their means and institutions of education, their skill 
and proficiency in the useful arts, their enterprise and 
public spirit, the monuments of their commercial and man- 
ufacturing industry ; and, above all, their devoted at- 
tachment to the government from which they derive their 
protection, with the derision, discontent, indolence, and poverty 
of the Southern country. To v/hat, Sir, is all this ascrib- 
able ? To that vice in the organization of society, by which one- 
h'nlf of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against 
the other half — to that unfortunate state of society in which 
freemen regard labor as disgraceful, and slaves slirink 
from it as a burden tyrannically imposed upon them — to 
that condition of things in which half a million of your 
population can feel no sympathy with the society in tlio 
|)rosperity of whicli they are forbidden to participate, and 
no attachment to a government at whose hands they re- 
ceive nothing but injustice. 



100 COMPARISON BETTVjSEN THK 

" If this bhould not be sufficient, and the curious ai.d 
incredulous inquirer should suggest that the contrast 
which has been adverted to, and which is so manifest, 
might be traced to a difference of climate, or other causes 
distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the 
two States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil, 
no diversity of climate, no diversity in the original set- 
tlement of those two States, can account for the remark- 
able disproportion in their natural advancement. Sepa- 
rated by a river alone, they seem to have been purposely aind 
providentially designed to exhibit in their future histories the dif- 
ference which necessarily results from a country free from, and a 
country affiicted with, the curse of slavery. 

" Vain and idle is every effort to strangle this inquiry. 
As well might you attempt to chain the ocean, or stay the 
avenging thunderbolts of Heaven, as to drive the people 
from any inquiry which may result in their better condi- 
tion. This is too deep, too engrossing a subject of consid- 
eration. It addresses itself too strongly to our interests, 
to our passions, and to our feelings. I shall advocate no 
scheme that does not respect the right of property, so far 
as it is entitled to be respected, with a just regard to the safety '' 
and resources of the State. I would approach the subject 
as one of great magnitude and delicacy, as one whose va 
ried and momentous consequences demand the calmest and 
most deliberate investigation. But still. Sir, I would ap- 
proach it — aye, delicate as it may be, encompassed as it 
may be with difficulties and hazards, I would still approach 
it. Tlie people demand it. Their security requires it. 
In the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, ' You 



FREB AND THE SIAVE STATES. 101 

•«us approach it — you must bear it — you must adopt 
some plan of emancipation, or worse will follow.' " 

Mr Curtis, in a speech in the Virginia Legislature in 
1832, said : 

" Tliere is a malaria in the atmosphere of these regions, 
which the new comer shuns, as being deleterious to his 
views and habits. See the wide-spreading ruin which the 
avarice of our ancestral government has produced in tlie 
South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen, 
deserted habitations, and fields without culture I Strange 
to tell, even the wolf, driven back long since by the ap- 
proach of man, now returns, after the lapse of a hundred 
years, to howl over the desolations of slavery." 

Mr. Moore, also a member of the Legislature of Virginia, 
in speaking of the evils of slavery, said : 

" The first I shall mention is the irresistible tendency 
which it has to undermine and destroy everything like vir- 
tue and morality in the community. If we look back 
through the long course of time which has elapsed since 
the creation to the present moment, we shall scarcely bo 
able to point out a people whose situation was not, in 
many respects, preferable to our own, and that of the other 
States, in which negro slavery exists. 

" In that part of the State below tide-water, the whole 
face of the country weara an appearance of almost uttej 
desolation, distressing to the beholder. The very spoi 
on which our ancestors landed, a little more than twc 
Imndred years ago, appears to be on the eve of again ho- 
coming the haunt of wild beasts." 
Mr. Rives, of Campbell county said : 



U'2 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

" On the multiplied and desolating evils of slavery, he 
was not disposed to say much. The curse and deteriora- 
ting consequence were within the observation and expe- 
rience of the members of the House and the people of Vir- 
ginia, and it did not seem to him that there could be two 
r>pinions about it." 

Mr. Powell said : 

" I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary 
gentleman in this House who will not readily admit that 
slavery is an evil, and that its removal, if practicable, is 
a consummation most devoutly to be wished. I have not 
heard, nor do I expect to liear, a v<.)ice raised in this Hail 
to the contrary." 

In the language of another, " we might multiply ex- 
tracts almost indefinitely from Virginia authorities — tes- 
tifying to the blight and degradation that have overtaken 
the Old Dominion, in every department of her affairs. 
Her commerce gone, her agriculture decaying, her land 
falling in value, her mining and manufactures nothing, 
her schools dying out, — she presents, according to the 
testimony of her own sons, the saddest of all pictures — 
that of a sinking and dying State." Every year leaves 
her in a worse condition than it found her ; and as it is 
with Virginia, so it is with the entire South. In the terse 
language of Governor Wise, " all have grown poor to- 
gether." The black god of slavery, which the South has 
worshipped for two hundied and thirty-seven years, is bnt 
a devil in disguise ; and if we would save ourselves fro?n 
being engulphed in utter ruin we must repudiate this foul 
god, for a purer do''' 3^, and abandon his altars for a luAwi 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 103 

dLrine. No time is to be lost ; his fanatical adorurs, the 
despotic adversaries of human liberty, are concocting 
schemes for the enslavement of all the laboring classes' 
irrespective of race or color. The issue is before us ; wc 
cannot evade it ; we must meet it with firmness, and with 
unflinching valor. 

What it was tliat paralyzed the tongues of all those 
members of the Virgina Legislature, who, at the session 
of 1831-32, distinguished themselves by advocating a 
system of emancipation, is a mystery that has never yet 
feeen solved. Whether any oi all of them shared a divi- 
sion of spoils with a certain newspaper editor, we 
have no means of knowing ; but if all accounts be true, 
there was consummated in Richmond, in the latter part 
of the year 1832, one of the blackest schemes of bribery 
and corruption that was ever perpetrated in this or any 
other country. We are assured, however, that one thing 
is certain, and it is this : that the negro population of 
Virginia was very considerably and suddenly decreased 
by forcible emigration — that a large gang was driven 
further South, sold, and the proceeds divided among cer- 
tain renegades and traitors, who, Judas-like, had agreed 
to serve the devil for a price. 

We would fain avoid all personalities and uncompli- 
mentary allusions to the dead, but when men, from love 
of lucre, from mere selfish motives, or from sheer turpi- 
tude of lioart, inflict great injuries and outrages on the 
public, their villainy ought to be exposed, so that othert 
may bo deterred from foil 3wing in their footsteps. As a 
general rule, man's moral nature is, we believe, so stronr 




104 C01IPARI30N BcrWELX TliE 

that it invariably prompts him to eschew rice and prao 
tice virtue — in other words, to do right ; but this rule, 
like all others, has its exceptions, as might be most strik 

ingly illustrated in the character of = — , and 

some half-dozen or more of his pro-slavery coadjutors. 
From whose hands did this man receive fifty thousand 
lollars — improperly, if not illegally, taken from the 
public funds in Washington ? When did he receive it ? — 
and for what purpose ? — and who was the arch-dema- 
gogue through whose agency the transfer was made ? 
He was an oligarchical member of the Cabinet under }>lv. ^ 
Polk's administration"~1n 1845, — and the"~'money' wja® 
used, — and who can doubt intended? — for the express ^- 
purpose of establishing another negro-driving journal to i 
support the tottering fortunes of slavery. From the*^ 
second volume of a valuable political work, "by a Sena-^^ 
tor of thirty years," we make the following pertinent 
extract : — 

" The Globe was sold, and was paid for, and how ? be- 
comes a question of public concern to answer ; for it was 
paid for out of public money — those same $50,000 which 
were removed to the village bank in the interior of Penn- 
sylvania by a Treasury order on the fourth of November, 
1844. Three annual installments made the payment, and 
the Treasury did not reclaim the money for these three 
years ; and, though traveling through tortuous channels, 
the sharpsighted Mr. Rives traced the money back to its 
starting point from that deposit. Besides, Mr. Cameron, 
who had control of the village lank, admitted before a 
committee of Congress, that he had furnished minu-y for 



FREE AN J THE SLAVE STATES. 105 

the paymGiits — an admission which the obliging (yommit- 
tee, on request, left out of their report. Mr. Robert J. 
Walker was Secreta y of the Treasury during these three 
years, and the conviction was absolute, among the close 
observers of the course of things, that he w^as the prime 
contriver and zealous manager of the arrangements which 
displaced Mr. Blair and installed Mr. Ritchie." 

Thus, if we are to believe Mr. Benton, in his " Thirty 
fear's View," and we are disposed to regard him as good 
luthority, th<i Washington Union was brought into exis- 
tence under Ihe peculiar auspices of the ostensible editor 
of the Richmond Enquirer ; and the two papers, fathered 
by the same individual, have gone hand in hand for th;^ 
last dozen or thirteen years, the shameless advocates and 
defenders of human bondage. To suppose that either has 
been sustained by fairer means than it was commenced 
with, would be wasting imagination on a great improba- 
bility. Both have uniformly and pertinaciously opposed 
every laudable enterprise that the white non-slaveholder 
has projected ; indeed, so unmitigated has been their hos- 
tility to all manual pursuits in which their stupid and vul- 
gar slaves can not be employed to advantage — and if 
there is any occupation under the sun in which they can be 
employed to good advantage, we known not what it is — 
that it is an extremely difficult matter to find a respecta- 
ble merchant, mechanic, manufacturer, or business man 
of any calling whatever, within the boun Is of their circu 
Intion. 

We have been credibly informed by a gentleman from 
Powdia'taii < ounty, in Virginia, that in the j'ear 1836 or 



10( COilPARISOX BETWEEN .HE 

'31, or about that time, tlie Hon. Abbott Lawrentie, of Bos- 
ton, backed by his brother Amos and other millionaires of 
New England, went down to Richmond with the sole view 
of reconnoitering the manufacturing facilities of that place 
— fully determined, if pleased with the water-power, to 
erect a large number of cotton-mills and machine-shops. 
He had been in the capital of Virginia only a day or two 
before he discovered, much to his gratification, that nature 
had shaped everythnig to his liking ; and as he was a 
business man who transacted business in a business-like 
manner, he lost no time in making preliminary arr^ange- 
ments for the consummation of his noble purpose. His 
mission was one of peace and promise ; others were to 
share the benefits of his laudable and concerted scheme ; 
thousands of poor boys and girls in Virginia, instead of 
growing up in extreme poverty and ignorance, or of having 
to emigrate to the free States of the West, were to have 
avenues of profitable employment opened to them at home ; 
thus they would be enabled to earn an honest and reputa- 
ble living, to establish and sustain free schools, free libra- 
ries, free lectures, and free presses, to become useful and 
exemplary members of society, and to die fit candidates 
for heaven. The magnanimous New Englander was in 
ecstasies with the prospect that opened before him. Indi- 
vidually, so far as mere money was concerned, he was per- 
fectly independent ; his industry and econ' my in early 
life had secured to him the ownership and control of an 
ample fortune. With the aid of eleven other men, each 
equal to himself, he could have bought the whole city of 
Richmond — negroes and all — though it is not to be pre- 



^REE AND THE SLiVE STATES. 10'< 

:omed that he would have disgraced his name by bccomin'^' 
' a trader in human flesh. But he was not selfish ; unlike 
the arrogant and illiberal slaveholder, he did not regard 
himself as the centre around whom everybody else should 
revolve. On the contrary, he was a genuine philanthropist. 
While, with a shrewdness that will command the admira- 
tion of every practical business man, he engaged in nothing 
that did not swell the dimensions of his own purse, he was 
yet always solicitous to invest his capital in a manner cal- 
culated to promote the interest of those around him. Nor 
was he satisfied with simply furnishing the means whereby 
his less fortunate neighbors were to become prosperous, 
intelligent and contented. V^^ith his generous heart and 
sagacious mind, he delighted to aid them in making a 
judicious application of his wealth to their own use. 
Moreover, as a member of society, he felt that the commu- 
nity had some reasonable claims upon him, and he made 
it obligatory on himself constantly to devise plans and 
exert his personal efforts for the public good. Such was 
the character of the distinguished manufacturer who hon- 
ored Richmond with his presence nineteen or twenty years 
ago ; such was the character of the men whom he repre- 
sented, and such were the grand designs which they 
sought to accomplish. 

To the enterprising and moneyed descendant of the Pil- 
grim Fathers it was a matter of no little astonishment, 
that the immense water-power of Richmond had been so 
long neglecte 1. He expressed his surprise to a number 
of Virginian^ md was at a loss to know why they had 
not, long prior to the p-riod of his visit amongst them, 



N 



108 COMFARISON BETWEEN THE 

availed themselves of the powerful clement tl.it is eter- 
nally g ishing and foaming over the falls of James River. 
Innocent man 1 He was utterly unconscious of the fact 
that he was " interfering with the beloved institutions of 
the South," and little was he prepared to withstand the 
terrible denunciations that were immediately showered on 
his head through the columns of the Richmond Enquirer. 
Few words will suffice to tell the sequel. That negro- 
worshipping sheet, whose hireling policy, for the last four 
and twenty years, has been to support the worthless black 
slave and his tyrannical master at the expense of the free 
white laborer, wrote down the enterprise ! and the noble 
son of New England, abused, insulted and disgusted, 
quietly returned to Massachusetts, and there employed 
his capital in building up the cities of Lowell and Law- 
rence, either of which, in all those elements of material 
and social prosperity that make up the greatness of States, 
is already far in advance of the most important of all the 
seedy and squalid niggervilles in the Old Dominion. Such 
is an inkling of the infamous means that have been resort- 
ed to, from time to time, for the purpose of upholding and 
perpetuating in America the accursed institution ol 
slavery. 

Haying in view all the foregoing facts, we were not in 
the least surprised when, while walking through Holl}^- 
wood Cemetery, in the western suburbs cf Richmond, not 
long since, our companion, a Virginian of the true school, 
directed our attention to a monument of some pretentions, 
and exclaimed, " There lie the remains of a man upon 
whose monument should be inscribed in everlasting prom- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE gy/A* ES. 109 

mcnce the finger of scorn pointing downward." The reader 
scarcely needs to be told that we were standing at the 

tomb of , who in the opinion of our friend, 

had, by concentrating within himself the views and pur- 
poses of all the evil spirits in Virginia, greatly retarded 
the abolition of slavery ; so greatly, indeed, as, thereby, 
to throw the State at least fifty years behind her free 
competitors of the North, of the East, and of the West 
It is to be hoped that Virginia may never give birth to 
another man whose evil influence will so justly entitle him 
to the reprobation of posterity. 

How any rational man in this or any other country, 
with the astounding contrasts between Freedom and Sla- 
very ever looming in his view, can offer an apology for 
the existing statism of the South, is to us a most inexpli- 
cable mystery. Indeed, we cannot conceive it possible 
that the conscience of any man, who is really sane, would 
permit him to become the victim of such an egregious 
and diabolical absurdity. Therefore, at this period of our 
history, with the light of the past, the reality of the pre- 
sent, and the prospect of the future, all so prominent 
and so palpable, we infer that every person who sets up 
an unequivocal defence of the institution of slavery, must, 
of necessity, be either a fool, a knave, or a madman. 

It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at 
but one side of the question. Of all the fanatics in the 
country, they have, of late, become the most unreasonable 
and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the subject 
of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are 
possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they 



110 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

will rc'adily perceive the grossness of their past ervors, 
renounce their allegiance to a cause so unjust and dia- 
graccful, and at once enroll themselves among the hosts 
of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. TJiere 
are thirty-one States in the Union ; let them drop Califor- 
Dia, or any other new free State, and then institute fifteen 
comparisons, first comparing New- York with Virginia, 
Pennsylvania with Carolina, Massachusetts with Georgia, 
and so on, until they have exhausted the catalogue. 
Then, for once, let them be bold enough to listen to the 
admonitions of their own souls, and if they do not soon 
start to their feet demanding the abolition of slavery, it 
will only be because they have reasons for suppressing 
their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old 
free States with the old slave States, or the new free 
States with the new slave States, the dilFerence, unmis- 
takable and astounding, is substantially the same. All 
the free States are alike, and-all the slave States are alike. 
In the former, wealth, intelligence, power, progress, and 
prosperity, are the prominent characteristics ; in the latter, 
poverty, ignorance, embecility, inertia, and extravagance, 
are the distinguishing features. To be convinced, it is 
only necessary for us to open our eyes and look at facts 
— to examine^itfi statistics of the country, to free ourselves 
from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to 
convictions of truth. Let figures be the umpire. Close 
attention to th? preceding and subsequent tables is all we 
ask ; so soon as they shall be duly considered and under- 
stood, the primary object of this work will hare beco 
accomplished. 



FllKK AND THE SLAVE ST. E3, 11* 

Not content with eating out the vitals of the South, 
slavery, true to the character which it has acquired for 
insatiety and rapine, is beginning to make rapid encroach- 
ments on new territory ; and as a basis for a few remarks 
on the bhisting influence which it is shedding over the 
hroad and fertile domains of the West, which in accord- 
ance with the views and resolutions offered by the immor- 
tal Jeflerson, should have been irrevocably dedicated to 
freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of the reader 
to another presentation of the philosophy of free and slave 
labor. Says the North American and United States Gazette : 
" We have but to compare the States, possessing equal 
natural advantages, in which the two kinds of labor are cm- 
ploj^ed, in order to decide with entire confidence as to which 
kind is the more profitable. At the origin cf the govern- 
ment, Virginia, with a much larger extent of territory thai 
New-York, contained a population of seven hundred and 
fifty thousand, and sent ten representatives to Congress ; 
while New-York contained a population of three Imndred 
and forty thousand, and sent six representatives to Con- 
gress. Behold how the figures are reversed. The popu- 
lation of New-York is three and a half millions, represent- 
ed by thirty-three members in Congress ; while the popu- 
lation of Virginia is but little more than one and a half 
millions, represented by thirteen members in Congress. It 
is the vital sap of free labor that makes the one tree so 
thrifty and vigorous, so capable of bearing with all ease 
the fruit of such a population. And it is slave labor which 
strikes a decadence through the other, drying up many of 
its branches with a fearful sterility, and rendering tlie 



112 COMIiRISCN BETWEEN THE 

rest but scantily fruitful j really incapable of sustaining 
more. Look at Ohio, teeming with inhabitants, its soil 
loaded with every kind of agricultural wealth, its people 
engaged in every kind of freedom's diversified employ- 
ments, abounding with numberless happy homes, and with 
all the trophies of civilization, and it exhibits the magic 
effect of free labor, waking a wilderness into life and 
beauty ; while Kentucky, with equal or superior natural 
advantages, nature's very garden in this Western world, 
which commenced its career at a much earlier date, and 
was in a measure populous when Ohio was but a slumber- 
ing forest, but which in all the elements of progress, is 
now left far, very far, behind its young rival, shows how 
slave labor hinders the development of wealth among a 
people, and brings a blight on their prosperity. The one 
is a grand and beautiful poem in honor of free labor. The 
other is an humble confession to the world of the inferiority 
of slave labor." 

Equally significant is the testimony of Daniel R. Goodloe, 
of North Carolina, who says : — 

" The history of the United States shows, that while the 
slave States increase in population less rapidly than the 
free, there is a tendency in slave society to diffusion, 
greater than is exhibited by free society. In fact, diffusion, 
or extension of area, is one of the necessities of slavery : 
the prevention of which is regarded as directly and imme- 
diately menacing to the existence of the institutioL. Th's 
arises from the almost exclusive application of slave labi r 
to the one occupation of agriculture, and the difficulty, if 
not impossibility, of diversifying employments Free soci- 



FREE AND THE SLAV! STATES. 113 

ety, on the contrary, has indefinite resources of devehjp- 
ment within a restricted area. It will far excel shive 
society in the cultivation of the ground — first, on accouni 
of the superior intelligence of the laborers ; and secondly, 
in consequence of the greater and more various demands 
upon the earth's products, where commerce, manufactures, 
and the arts, abound. Then, these arts of life, by bringing 
men together in cities and towns, and employing them in 
the manufacture or transportation of the raw materials of 
the farmer, give rise to an indefinite increase of wealth 
and population. The confinement of a free people within 
narrow limits seems only to develop new resources of 
wealth, comfort and happiness ; while slave society, pent 
up, withers and dies. It must continually be fed by new 
fields and forests, to be wasted and wilted under the pois- 
onous tread of the slave." 

Were we simply a freesoiler, or anything else less than 
a thorough and uncompromising abolitionist, we should 
certainly tax our ability to the utmost to get up a cogent 
argument against the extension of slavery over any part 
of our dom^ain where it does not now exist ; but as our 
principles are hostile to the institution even where it docs 
exist, and, therefore, by implication and in fact, more hos- 
tile still to its introduction into new territory, we forbear 
the preparation of any special remarks on this particular 
subject. 

With regard to the unnational and demoralizing institu* 
tion of slavery, we believe the majority of Northern people 
are too scrupulous. They seem to think that it is enough 
for them to be mere freesoilers, to keep in che^-k the diffu- 



114 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

sive element cf slavery, and to prevent it from crossing 
over the bounds within which it is now regulated by muni- 
cipal law. Remiss in their national duties, as we contend, 
they make no positive attack upon the institution in the 
Southern States. Only a short while since, one of their 
ablest journals — the North American and United States Gor 
zette, published in Philadelphia — made use of the following 
language : — 

" With slavery in the States, we make no pretence of 
having anything politically to do. For better or for worse, 
the system belongs solely to the people of those States ; 
and is separated by an impassable gulf of State sovereignty 
from any legal intervention of -ours. We cannot vote it 
down any more than we can vote down the institution of 
caste in Hindostan, or abolish polygamy in the Sultan's 
dominions. Thus, precluded from all political action in 
reference to it, prevented from touching one stone of the 
edifice, not the slightest responsibilitj'- attaches to us as 
citizens for its continued existence. But on the questi(jn of 
extending slavery over the free Territories of the United 
States, it is our right, it is our imperative duty to think, 
to feel, to speak and to void. We cannot interfere to cover 
the shadows of slavery with the sunshine of freedom, but 
we can interfere to prevent the sunshine of freedom from 
being eclipsed by the shadows of slavery. We can inter- 
pose to stay the progress of that institution, which aims 
to drive free labor from its own heritage. Kansas should 
be divided up into countless homes for the ownership of 
men who have a right to the fruit of their own labors 
Free labor would make it bud and blossom like the rose ; 



TREE AND THE SI.«vE STATES. 115 

would cover it with beauty, and draw from it boundless 
wealth ; would throng it with population ; would make 
States, nations, empires out of it, prosperous, powerful, 
intelligent and free, illustrating on a wide theatre the 
beneficent ends of Providence iu the formation of our gov- 
ernment, to advance and elevate the millions of our race, 
and, like the heart in the body, from its central position, 
sending out on every side, far and near, the vital influences 
of freedom and civilization. May that region, therefore, 
be secured to free labor." 

Now we fully and heartily indorse every line of the lat- 
ter part of this extract ; but, with all due deference to 
our sage cotemporary, we do most emphatically dissent 
from the sentiments embodied in the first part. Pray, 
permit us to ask — have the people of the North no inter- 
est in the United States as a nation, and do they not see 
that slavery is a great injury and disgrace to the ivho/e 
country ? Did the}" not, in " the days that tried men's 
80uls," strike as hard blows to secure the independence of 
<j^<,'orgia as they did in defending the liberties of Massa- 
cimsetts, and is it not notoriously true that the Toryism 
of South Carolina prolonged the war two years at least ? 
Is it not, moreover, equally true that the oligarchs of 
South Carolina have been unmitigated pests and bores to 
the General Government ever since it was organized, and 
that the free and conscientious people of the North ar(.» 
virtually excluded from her soil, in consequence of slavery ? 
It is a well-known and incontestible fact, that the North- 
ern States furnished about two-thirds of all the Amovi- 
can troops engaged in the Revolutionary War ; and, 



116 COMPARISON BETWEiN THE 

though they were neither more nor less brave or pati> 
otic than their fellow-soldiers of the South, yet, inasmuch 
as the independence of our country was mainly secured by 
virtue of their numerical strength, we think they ought 
to consider it not only their right but their duty to make 
a firm and decisive effort to save the States which they 
fought to free, from falling under the yoke of a worse ty- 
ranny than that which overshadowed them under the reign 
of King George the Third. Freemen of the North I we 
earnestly entreat you to think of these things. Hitherto, 
as mere freesoilers, you have approached but half-way to 
the line of your duty ; now, for your own sakes and for 
ours, and for the purpose of perpetuating this glorious 
Kepublic, which your fathers and our fathers founded in 
septennial streams of blood, we ask you, in all serious- 
ness, to organize yourselves as one man under the banners 
of Liberty, and to aid us in exterminating slavery, which is 
the only thing that militates against our complete aggran- 
dizement as a nation. 

In this extraordinary crisis of affairs, no man can be a 
true patriot without first becoming an abolitionist. (A 
freesoiler is only a tadpole in an advanced state of trans- 
formation ; an abolitionist is the full and perfectly devel- 
oped frog.) And here, perhaps, we may be pardoned for 
the digression necessary to show the exact definition o^ 
the terms ahclish, abclition and abolitionist. We have looked 
in vain for an explanation of the signification of these 
words in any Southern publication ; for no dictionary iius 
ever yet been published in the South, nor is there the least 
probability that one ever will be published within her bt)r 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 117 

ders, until slavery is abolished; but, thanks to Heaven, a 
portion of this continent is what our Revolutionary Fath- 
ers and the Fathers of the Constitution fought and laborer i 
and prayed to make it — a land of freedom, of power, of 
progress, of prosperity, of intelligence, of religion, of liter- 
ature, of commerce, of science, of arts, of agriculture, of 
manufactures, of ingenuity, of enterprise, of wealth, of 
renown, of goodness, and of grandeur. From that glori- 
ous part of our confederacy — from the North, whence, on 
account of slavery in the South, we are under the humili- 
ating necessity of procuring almost everything that is 
useful or ornamental, from primers to Bibles, from wafers 
to printing-presses, from ladles to locomotives, and from 
portfolios to portraits and pianos — comes to us a huge 
volume bearing the honored name of Webster — Noah 
Webster, who, after thirty-five years of unremitting toil, 
completed a work which is, we believe, throughout Great 
Britain and the United States, justly regarded as the stan- 
dard vocabulary of the English language — and in it the 
terms abolish, abolition, and abolitionist, are defined as fol- 
lows : — 

" Abolish, V. t. To make void ; to annul ; to abrogate ; ap- 
plied chiefly and appropriately to establish laws, contracts, rites, 
customs and institutions ; as to abolish laws by a repeal, actual 
or virtual. To destroy or put an end to ; as to abolish idols." 

" Abolition, n. The act of abolishing ; or the state of being 
abolished ; an annulling ; abrogation j utter destruction ; as the 
abolition of laws, decrees, or ordinances, rites, customs, (fcc* The 
•cutting an end to slavery ; emancipation." 

" Abolitionist, n. A person who favors abolition, oi the im- 
m:dia^.o emancipation of slaves." 



118 COMPARISON BETWEEN TEE 

There, gentlemen of the South, you have the definitions 
of the transitive verb abolish and its two derivative nouns, 
abolition and abolitionist ; can you, with the keenest possi- 
ble penetration of vision, detect in either of these words 
oven a tittle of the opprobrium which the oligarchs, in their 
wily ai-d inhuman efforts to enslave all working classes 
irrespective of race or color, have endeavored to attach to 
them ? AVe know you cannot ; abolition is but another 
name for patriotism, and its other special synonyms are 
generosity, magnanimity, reason, prudence, wisdom, reli- 
gion, progress, justice, and humanity. 

And liere, by the wa^'', we may as well explain whom 
we refer to when we speak of gentlemen of tlie South. 
We say, therefore, that, deeply impressed with the convic- 
tion that slavery is a great social and political evil, a .st;, 
*arid a crime, in the fullest sense, whenever we speak of gen- 
tlemen of the South, or of gentlemen anywhere, or at what- 
ever time, or in whatever connection we may speak of 
gentlemen, we seldom allude to slaveholders, for the sim- 
ple reason that, with few exceptions, we cannot conscien- 
tiously recognize them as gentlemen. It is only in those 
rare instances where the crime is mitigated by circum- 
stances over which the slaveholder has had no control, or 
where he himself, convinced of the impropriety, the folly 
n nd the wickedness of the institution, is anxious to abolish 
it, that we can sincerely apply to him the sacred appella- 
tion in question — an appellation which we would no sooner 
think of applying to a pro-slavery slaveholder, or any other 
pro-slavery man, than we would think* of applying it to a 
border-ruSBan, a thiei or a murderer. Let it be under- 



FREE AND THE SL^VVE ST^JKS. 119 

8{,<)od, however, that the rare instances of which we speak 
aie less rare than many persons may suppose. We 
■ire p^u'sonally acquainted with several slaveholders in 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, 
who have unreservedly assured us that they were dis- 
gusted with the institution, and some of them went so far 
as to say they wou^^^ ^v ^-lad to acquiesce in the provision 
of a statute whicn would make it obligatory on them all 
to manumit their slaves, witnout the smallest shadow or 
substance of compensation. These, we believe, are the 
sentiments of all the respectable and patriotic slavehold- 
ers, who have eyes to see, and sec — ears to hear, and 
hear ; who, perceiving the impoverishing and degrading 
effects of slavery, are unwilling to entail it on their chil- 
dren, and who, on account of their undeviating adherence 
to truth and justice, are, like the more intelligent non- 
slaveholders, worthy of being regarded as gentlemen in 
every sense of the term. Such slaveholders were Wasl> 
ington, Jefferson, Madison, and other illustrious Virgin* 
ians, who, in the language of the great chief himself, de- 
clared it among their "first wishes to see some plan adopted 
by which slavery, in this country, may be abolis-hed by 
law." The words embraced within this quotation were 
used by Washington, in a letter to John F. Morcer, dated 
September 9th, 1786 — -a letter from which we shall quotp 
more freely hereafter ; and we think his emphatic use of 
the participle abolished, at that early day, is proof positivf 
that the glorious " Father of his Country" is entitled to 
the first plaje in the calendar of primitive American al)> 
litionists. 



120 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

It is against slavery on the whole, and against slave- 
holders as a body, that we wage an exterminating war 
Those persons who, under the infamous slave-laws of the 
South — laws which have been correctly spoken of as a 
"disgrace to civilization," and which must be annulled 
simultaneously with the abolition of slavery — have had 
the vile institution entailed on them contrary to their 
wills, are virtually on our side ; we may, therefore, very 
properly strike them off from the black list of three hun- 
dred and forty-seven thousand slaveholders, who, as a 
body, have shocked the civilized world with their barba- 
rous conduct, and from whose conceited and presumptu- 
ous ranks are selected the officers who do all the legisla- 
tion, town, county, state and national, for (against) five 
millions of poor outraged whites, and three millions of 
enslaved negroes. 

Non-slaveholders of the South I farmers, mechanics and 
workingmcn, we take this occasion to assure you that the 
slaveholders, the arrogant demagogues whom you have 
elected to offices of honor and profit, have hoodwinked 
you, trifled with you, and used you as mere tools for the 
consummation of their wicked designs. They have pur- 
posely kept you in ignorance, and have, by moulding your 
passions and prejudices to suit themselves, induced you to 
act in direct opposition to your dearest rights and inter- 
ests. By a system of the grossest subterfuge and misre- 
presentation, and in order to avert, for a season, the ven- 
geance that will most assuredly overtake them ere long, 
they have taught you to hate the abolitionists, who are 
your best and only true fripnds. Now, as one of your 



FREE AND THE SLiVE STATES. 121 

own number, we appeal to you to join us in our patriotic 
endeavors to rescue the generous soil of the South from the 
usurped and desolating control of these political vampires. 
Once and forever, at least so far as this country is con- 
cerned, the infernal question of slavery must be disposed 
of ; a speedy and perfect abolishment of the whole insti- 
tution is the true policy of the South — and this is the 
policy which we propose to pursue. Will you aid us, will 
you assist us, will you be freemen, or will you be slaves ? 
These are questions of vital importance ; weigh them well 
in your minds ; come to a prudent and firm decision, and 
hold yourselves in readiness to act in accordance there- 
with. You must either be for us or against us — anti- 
slavery or pro-slavery ; it is impossible for you to occupy 
a neutral ground ; it is as certain as fate itself, that if you 
do not voluntarily oppose the usurpations and outrages 
of the slavocrats, they will force you into involuntary 
compliance with their infamous measures. Consider well 
the aggressive, fraudulent and despotic power which they 
have exercised in the affairs of Kansas ; and remember 
that, if, by adhering to erroneous principles of neutrality 
or non-resistance, you allow them to force the curse of 
tslavery on that vast and fertile field, the broad area of all 
the surrounding States and Territories — the whole nation, 
in fact — will soon fail a prey to their diabolical intrigues- 
and machinations. Thus, if you are not vigilant, will 
tliey take advantage of your neutrality, and make you 
and others the victims of their inhuman despotism. Do 
not reserve the strength of your arms until you shall have 

been rendered powerless to strike ; the present is the 

6 



122 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE STATES. 

proper time for action ; under all the circumstai ces, apa^ 
thy or indifference is a crime. First ascertain, as nearly 
as you can, the precise nature and extent of your duty, 
and then, without a moment's delay, perform it in good 
faith. To facilitate you in determining what considera- 
tions of right, justice and humanity require at your hands, 
is one of the primary objects of this work ; and we shall 
certainly fail in our desire if we do not accomplish out 
task in a manner acceptable to God and advantageous to 
man. 

But we are carrying this chapter beyond all ordinary 
bounds ; and yet, there are many important particulars in 
which we have drawn no comparison between the free and 
the slave States. The more weighty remarks which we 
intended to offer in relation to the new States of the West 
and Southwest, free and slave, shall appear' in the suc- 
ceeding chapter. With reg'ard to agriculture, and all the 
multifarious interests of husbandry, we deem it quite un- 
necessary to say more. Cotton has been shorn of its 
magic power, and is no longer King ; dried grass, common- 
ly called hay, is, it seems, the rightful heir to the throne. 
Commerce, Manufactures, Literature, and other important 
subjects, shall be considered as we progress. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 123 



CHAPTER 11. 

now SLAVERY CAN BE AEOLISIIED. 

Preliminary to our elucidation of what wg conceive to 
be the most discreet, fair and feasible plan for the abolition 
of slavery, we propose to offer a few additional reasons 
why it should be abolished Among the thousand and one 
arguments that present themselves in support of our posi- 
tion — which, before we part with the reader, we shall en- 
deavor to define so clearly, that it shall be regarded as 
ultra only by those who imperfectly understand it — is the 
influence which slavery invariably exercises in depressing 
the value of real estate ; and as this is a matter in which 
the non-slaveholders of the South, of the West, and of the 
Southwest, are most deeply interested, we shall discuss it 
in a sort of preamble of some length. 

The oligarchs say we cannot abolish slavery without 
infringing on the right of property. Again we tell them 
we do not recognize property in man ; but even if we did, 
and if we were to inventory 4;he negroes at quadruple, the 
value of their last assessment, still, impelled by a sense 
of duty to others, and as a matter of simple justice to our- 
selves, we, the non-slaveholders of the South, would be 
fully warranted in emancipating all the slaves at once, 
and that, too, without any compensation whatever to 



124 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE aBCIISHED. 

those who claim Id be their absolute masters and owners 
We will explain. In 1850, the average value per acre, of 
land in the Northern States was $28,0Y ; in the North- 
western $11,39 ; in the Southern $5,34 ; and in the South- 
western $6,26. Now, in consequence of numerous natural 
advantages, among which may be enumerated the greater 
mildness of climate, richness of soil, deposits of precious 
metals, abundance and spaciousness of harbors, and super- 
excellence of water-power, we contend that, had it not 
been for slavery, the average value of land in all the 
Southern and Southwestern States, would have been at 
least equal to the average value of the same in the North- 
ern States. We conclude, therefore, and we think the 
conclusion is founded on principles of equity, that you, 
the slaveholders, are indebted to us, the non-slaveholders, 
in the sum of $22,T3, which is the difference between 
$28,0t and $5,34, on every acre of Southern soil in our 
possession. This claim we bring against you, because 
slavery, which has inured exclusively to your own benefit, 
if, indeed, it has been beneficial at all, has shed a blight- 
ing influence over our lands, thereby keeping them out of 
market, and damaging every acre to the amount specified. 
Sirs ! are you ready to settle the account ? Let us see 
how much it is. There are in the fifteen slave States, 
346,048 slaveholders, and 544,926,120 acres of land. Now 
the object is to ascertain how many acres are owned by 
slaveholders, and now many by non-slaveholders. Sup- 
pose we estimate five hundred acres as the average landed 
property of each slaveholder ; will that be fair ? We 
think it will, t-^king into consideration the fact that 114,503 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 125 

of the whole number of slaveholders hold less than five 
slaves each— 68,820 holding only one each. According 
to this hypothesis, the slaveholders own 173,024,000 acres, 
and the non-slaveholders the balance, with the exception 
of about 40,000,000 of acres, which belong to the General 
Government. The case may be stated thus : 

Area of tlie Slave States 544,926,720 acres. 
r Acres owned by slaveholders.. 173,024,000 
Estimates < Acres owned by tSe government 40,000,000— 213,024,000 
t Acres owned by non-slaveholders 331,902,720 

Now, chevaliers of the lash, and worshippers of slavery, 
the total value of three hundred and thirty-one million nine 
hundred and two thousand seven hundred and twenty 
acres, at twenty-two dollars and seventy-three cents per 
acre, is seven billion five hundred and forty-four million one 
hundred and forty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty five 
dollars ; and this is our account against you on a single 
score. Considering how your villainous institution has 
retarded the development of our commercial and manufac- 
turing interests, how it has stifled the aspirations of in- 
ventive genius ; and, above all, how it has barred from us 
the heaven-born sweets of literature and religion— con- 
cernments too sacred to be estimated in a pecuniary point 
of view— might we not, with perfect justice and propriety, 
duplicate the amount, and still be accounted modest in 
our demands? Fully advised, however, of your indi- 
gent circumstances, we feel it would be utterly useless 
to call on you for the whole amount that is due us ; we 
shall, therefore, in your behalf, make anotUr draft on the 
fund of non-slaveholding generosity, and let the account, 
meagre aa it is, stand as above. Though we have given 



126 HOW slave:\y can be abolished. 

you all the offices, and you have given us none of tJie 
benefits of legislation ; though we have fought the battles 
of the South, while you were either lolling in your piazzaa, 
or playing the tory, and endeavoring to filch from us oiir 
birthright of freedom ; though you have absorbed the 
wealth of our communities in sending your own children 
to Noi thern seminaries and colleges, or in employing Yan- 
kee teachers to ofSciate exclusively in your own families, 
and have refused to us the limited privilege of comnion 
schools ; though you have scorned to patronize our mechar 
nics and industrial enterprises, and have passed to the 
North for every article of apparel, utility, and adornment ; 
and though you have maltreated, outraged and defrauded 
us in every relation of life, civil, social, and political, yet 
we are willing to forgive and/cr^c^ you, if you will but do 
us justice on a single count. Of you, the introduceiB, 
aiders and abettors of slavery, we demand indemnificatioi 
for the damage our lands have sustained on account there 
of; the amount of that damage is $7,544,148,825 ; and 
now, Sirs, we are ready to' receive the money, and if i1 ii 
perfectly convenient to you, we would be glad to have yoi> 
pay it in specie I It will not avail you, Sirs, to parley CI 
prevaricate. We must have a settlement. Our claim fg 
just and overdue. We have already indulged you toC» 
long. Your criminal extravagance has almost ruined TiS 
We are determined that you shall no longer play the pro 
fligatc, and fair sumptuously every day at our expense 
How do you propose to settle ? Do you offer us your no 
grocs in part payment ? We do not want your negroes 
We would not have all of them, nor any number of them, 



nnw SLAVERY CAX BE ABOLISHED. 121 

even as a gift. We hold ourselves above the Jisicputa- 
blc and iniquitous practices of buying, selling, and own- 
ing slaves. What we demand is damages in money, or 
other absolute property, as an equivalent for the pecuniary 
losses we have suffered at your hands. You value your 
negroes at sixteen hundred millions of dollars, and propose 
to sell them to us for that sum ; we should consider our- 
selves badly cheated, and disgraced for all time, here and 
hereafter, if we were to take them off your hands at six- 
teen farthings 1 We tell you emphatically, we are firmly 
resolved never to degrade ourselves by becoming the 
mercenary purchasers or proprietors of human beings. Ex- 
cept for the purpose of liberating them, we would not 
give a handkerchief or a tooth-pick for all the slaves in 
the world. But, in order to show how brazenly absurd 
are the howls and groans which you invariably set up 
for compensation, whenever we speak of the abolition of 
slavery, we w411 suppose your negroes are worth all you 
ask for them,.and that we are bound to secure to you every 
cent of the sum before they can become free — in which 
case, our accounts would stand thus : 

Non-slavelioldei-'s account against Slavcliolders $i7, 544, 148,825 

Slavcholder'is account against Non-slaveholders 1,600,000,000 

Balance due Nou-slaveliolders $5,944,148,825 

Now, Sirs, we ask you in all seriousness, Is it not 
true that you have filched from us nearly five times the 
amount of the assessed value of your slaves ? Why, then, 
do you still clamor for more ? Is it your purpose to make 
the game perpetual ? Think you that wo will ever con- 
tinue to bow at the wave of your wand, that we will bring 



128 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

humanity into everlasting disgrace by licking the hand 
that smites us, and that with us there is no point beyond 
which forbearance ceases to be a virtue ? Sirs, if these be 
your thoughts, you are laboring under a most fatal delu- 
sion, f You can goad us no further ; you shall oppress us 
no longer ; heretofore, earnestly but submissively, we 
have asked you to redress the more atrocious outrages 
which you have perpetrated against us ; but what has 
been the invariable fate of our petitions ? With scarcely 
a perusal, with a degree of contempt that added insult to 
injury, you have laid them on the table, and from thence 
they have been swept into the furnance of oblivion, f Hence- 
forth, Sirs, we are demandants, not suppliants.' We de- 
mand our rights, nothing more, nothing less. It is for you 
to decide whether we are to have justice peaceably or by 
violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are 
determined to have it one way or the other. Do you as- 
pire to become the victims of white non-slaveholding ven- 
geance by day, and of barbarous massacre by the negroes 
at night ? Would you be instrumental in bringing upon 
yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too hor- 
rible to contemplate ? shall history cease to cite, as ai 
instance of unexampled cruelty, the Massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew, because the world — the South — shall have furn- 
ished a more direful scene of atrocity and carnage ? Sirs, 
we would not wantonly pluck a single hair from your 
heads ; but we have endured long, we have endured 
much ; slaves only of the most despicable class would 
endure more. An enumeration or classification of all the 
abuses, insult^ wrongs, injuries, usurpations, and oppres- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 12\1 

siona, to which you have subjected us, would fill a larger 
volume than this ; it is our purpose, therefore, to speak 
only of those that afiect us most deepl3^ Out of our ellects 
youj; have long since overpaid yourselves fur your negroes ; 
and now, Sirs, you must emancipate them — speedily eman- 
cipate them, or we will emancipate them for you I Every 
non-slaveholdei in the South is, or ought to be, and will 
be, against you. You yourselves ought to join us at once 
in our laudable crusade against " the mother of harlots " 
Slavery has polluted and impoverished your lands ; free- 
dom will restore them to their virgin purity, and add from 
twenty to thirty dollars to the value of every acre. Cor- 
rectly speaking, emancipation will cost you nothing ; the 
moment you abolish slavery, that very moment will the 
putative value of the slave become actual value in the 
soil. Though there are ten millions of people in the South, 
^and though you, the slaveholders, are only three hundred 
and forty-siven thousand in number, you have within a 
fraction of one-third of all the territory belonging to the 
fifteen slave States. You have a landed estate of 113,- 
024,000 acres, the present average market value of which 
is only $5,34 per acre ; emancipate your slaves on Wednes- 
day morning, and on the Thursday following the value of 
your lands, and ours too, will have increased to an aver- 
age of at least $28,01 per acre. Let us see, therefore, 
even in this one particular, whether the abolition of 
slavery will not be a real pecuniary advantage to you 
The present total market value of all your landed property, 
at $5,34 per acre, is only $923,248,160 I With the beauty 
and sunlight of freedom beaming on the same estate, it 



130 HO"W SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

would be worth, at $28,01 per acre, $4,856,813,680 Th( 

former sum, deducted from the latter, leaves a balance of 

$3,933,535,520, and to the full extent of this amount wil 

your lands be increased in value whenever you abolisl 

slavery ; that is, provided you abolish it before it com 

pletely " dries up all the organs of increase." Here is f 

more manifest and distinct statement of the case : — 

Estimated value of slaveholders' lands after slavery ^ ^k^ org i-on goQ 

shall have been abolished 5 

Present value of slaveholders' lands 923,248,160 

Probable aggregate enhancement of value $3,933,535,520 

Kow, Sirs, this last sum is considerably more than twice 
as great as the estimated value of your negroes ; and those 
of you, if any there be, who are yet heirs to sane mindg 
and honest hearts, must, it seems to us, admit that the 
bright prospect which freedom presents for a wonderfii} 
increase in the value of real estate, ours as well as yours, 
to say nothing of the thousand other kindred considerations, 
ought to be quite sufficient to induce all the Southern 
States, in their sovereign capacities, to abolish slavery at 
the earliest practical period. You yourselves, instead of 
losing anything by the emancipation of your negroes — 
even though we suppose them to be worth every dime of 
$1,600,000,000 — would, in this one particular, the increased 
value of land, realize a net p-ofit of over twenty threehundTCQ 
viilaons of dollars! Here are the exact figures ; — 

Net increment of value which it is estimated wilK 

accrue to slaveholders' lands in consequence ( t3,933,53o,520 
of the abolition of slavery i • • • } 

P-tative value of the slaves 1,600,000,000 

Slaveholders' es'imakd net h.iwx'i}, j.rofits of cman, ^•2,333,536,520 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISPIED. 131 

What is the import of these figures ? They are full of 
meaning'. They proclaim themselves the financial inter- 
cessora for freedom, and, with that open-hearted liberality 
which is so characteristic of the sacred cause in whose 
behalf they plead, they propose to pay you upward of tliree 
thousand nine hundred millions of dollars for the very 
" property" w^hich you, in ail the reckless extravagance 
of your inhuman avarice, could not find a heart to price at 
more than one thousand six hundred millions. In other 
words, your own lands, groaning and languishing under 
tire monstrous burden of slavery, announce their willing- 
ness to pay you all you ask for the negroes, and offer you, 
besides, a bonus of more than twenty-three hundred 
millions of dollars, if you will but convert those lands into 
free soil I Our lands, also, cry aloud to be spared from 
the further pollutions and desolations of slavery ; and now, 
Sirs, we want to know explicitly whether, or not, it is your 
intention to heed these lamentations of the ground ? We 
w^ant to know w^hether you are men or devils — whether 
you are entirely selfish and cruelly dishonest, or whether 
you have any respect for the rights of others. We, the 
non-slaveholders of the South, have many very important 
interests at stake — interests which, heretofore, 3'ou have 
steadily despised and trampled under foot, but which, 
henceforth, we shall foster and defend in utter defiance of 
all the unhallowed influences v/hich it is possible for you, 
or any other class of slaveholders or slavebreeders to bring 
against us. Not the least among these interests is our 
landed property, which, to command a decent price, only 
needs to be disencumbered of slavery. 



132 HOW SLAVEKV CAN DE ABOLISHED. 

Ill his present condition, we believe man exercises one 
of the noblest virtues with which heaven has endowed him, 
when, without taking any undue advantage of his fellow- 
men, and with a firm, unwavering purpose to confine his 
expenditures to the legitimate pursuits and pleasures rf 
life, he covets money and strives to accumulate it. Enter- 
taining this view, and having no disposition to make an 
improper use of money, we are free to confess that we have 
a greater penchant for twenty-eight dollars than for five ; 
for ninety than for fifteen ; for a thousand than for one 
hundred. South of Mason and Dix'^n's line we, the non- 
slaveholders, have 331,902,^20 acres of land, the present 
average market value of which, as previously stated, is 
only $5,34 per acre ; by abolishing slavery we expect to 
enhance the value to an average of at least $28,07 per acre, 
and thus realize an average net increase of wealth of mo.'e 
than seventy-five hundred millions of dollars. The hope of 
realizing smaller sums has frequently induced men to per- 
petrate acts of injustice ; we can see no reason why the 
certainty of beooming immensely rich in real estate, or 
other property, should make us falter in the performance 
of a sacred diUy. 

As illustrative of our theme, a bit of personal history 
may not be out of place in this connection. Only a few 
months have elapsed since we sold to an elder brother an 
interest we held in an old homestead which was willed to 
us many years ago by our dear departed father. The tract 
of land, containing two hundred acres, or therea])outs, is 
situated two and a half miles west of Mocksville, the cap- 
ital of Davie county, North Carolina, and is very nearly 



HOW SIAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 133 

equally divided by Bear Creek, a small tributary of the 
South Yadkin. More than one-third of this tract — on which 
we have plowed, and hoed, and harrowed, many a long 
summer without ever suffering from the effects of cou]^ de 
soldi — is under cultivation ; the remaining portion is a well- 
timbered forest, in which, without being very particular, 
we counted, while hunting through it not long since, sixty- 
three different kinds of indigenous trees — to say nothing 
of either coppice, shrubs or plants — among which the 
hickory, oak, ash, beech, birch, and black walnut, were 
.most abundant. No turpentine or rosin is produced in our 
part of the State ; but there are, on the place of which we 
speak, several species of the genus Pinus, by the light of 
whose flammable knots, as radiated on the contents of 
some half-dozen old books, w^liich, by hook or by crook, had 
found their way into the neighborhood, we have been ena- 
bled to turn the long winter evenings to our advantage, 
and have thus partiallij escaped /rom the prison-grounds of 
those loathsome dungeons of illiteracy in which it has been 
the constant policy of the oligarchy to keep the masses, 
the non-slaveholding whites and the negroes, forever con- 
fined. The fertility of the soil may be inferred from the 
quality and variety of its natural productions ; the meadow 
and the bottom, comprising, perhaps, an area of forty 
acres, are hardly surpassed by the best lands in the valley 
of the Yadkin. A thorough examination of the orchard 
will disclose the fact that considerable attention has been 
paid to the selection of fruits ; the buildings are tolerable ; 
the water is good. Altogether, to be frank, and nothing 
more, it is, for its size, one of the most desirable farms in 



134 EOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

the CDunty, and will, at any time^ command the maximum 
price of land in Western Carolina. Our brother, anxious 
to become the sole proprietor, readily agreed to give us 
the highest market price, which we shall publish by-and- 
bye. While reading the Baltimore Sun, the morning after 
we had made the sale, our attention was allured to a para- 
graph headed *' Sales of Real Estate," from which, among 
other significant items, we learned that a tract of land 
containing exactly two hundred acres, and occupying a 
portion of one of the rural districts in the southeastern 
part of Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line, had been 
sold the week before, at oTie hundred and Jive dollars and fifty 
cc.nls per acre. Judging from the succinct account given 
in the Sun, we are of the opinion that, with regard to fer- 
tility of soil, the Pennsylvania tract always has been, is 
nov,^, and perhaps always will be, rather inferior to the one 
under special consideration. One is of the same size as the 
other ; both are used for agricultural purposes ; in all 
probability the only essential difference between them is 
this : one is blessed with the pure air of freedom, the other 
is cursed with the malaria of slavery. For our interest in 
the old homestead we received a nominal sum, amounting 
to an SiveY^ge of precisely fa-e dollars anzl sixty cents -pcY acre. 
No one but our brother, who was keen for the purchase, 
would have given us quite so much. 

And, now, pray let us ask, what docs this narrative 
teach ? We shall use few words in explanation : there is 
an extensive void, but it can be better filled with reflection. 
The aggregate value of the one tract is $21,100 ; that of 
the otl^er is only $1,120 ; the difference is $19,980. We 



now SLAVERY CAN EE ABOLISHED. 136 

contend, therefore, in view of all the circumstances dc 
tailed, that the advocates and retainers of slavery, have, 
to all intents and purposes, defrauded our family out of 
this last-mentioned sum. In like manner, and on the san.e 
basis of deduction, we contend that almost every non 
slaveholder, who either is or has Leon the owner of real 
estate in the South, would, in a court of strict justice, he 
entitled to damages — the amount in all cases to be de- 
termined v/ith reference to the quality of the land in ques 
tion. We say this because, in violation of every principle 
of expediency, justice, and humanity, and in direct oppo 
sition to our solemn protests, slavery was foisted upon us. 
and has been thiis far perpetuated, by and through the 
diabolical intrigues of the oligarchs, and by them alone : 
and furthermore, because the very best agricultural landt 
in the Northern States being worth from one hundred t< 
one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre, there is im 
possible reason, except slavery, why the more fertile ar.ci 
couo'cnial soil of the South should not be worth at Icvan 
as much. If, on this principle, we could ascertain, in th; / 
matter of real estate, the total indebtedness of the slave- 
holders to the non-slaveholders, we should doubtless find 
the sum quite equivalent to the amount estimated on i 
precedmg page — $7,544,148,825. \ 

We have recently conversed with two gentlemen who 
to save themselves from the poverty and disgrace o* 
slavery, left North Carolina six or seven years ago, an* 
who are nov/ residing in the territory of Minnesota, when 
they have accumulated liandsorae fortunes. One of therr 
hac'' traveled extensivel\ vi Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, 



136 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Indiana, and other adjoining States ; and, according tc 
his account, and we know him to be a mun of veracity, it 
is almost impossible for persons at a distance, to form a 
proper conception of the magnitude of the difference be- 
tween the current value of lands in the Free and the Slave 
States of the West. On one occasion, embarking at 
Wheeling, he sailed down the Ohio ; Virgina and Ken- 
tucky on the one side, Ohio and Indiana on the other. He 
stopped at several places along the river, first on the right 
bank, then on the left, and so on, until he arrived at Evans- 
ville ; continuing his trip, he sailed down to Cairo, thence 
up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Des Moines ; having 
tarried at different points along the route, sometimes in 
Missouri, sometimes in Illinois. Wherever he landed on 
free soil, he found it from one to two hundred per cent, 
more valuable than the slave soil on the opposite bank. 
If, for instance, the maximum price of land was eight dol- 
lars in Kentucky, the minimum price was sixteen in Ohio ; 
if it was seven dollars in Missouri, it was fourteen in Illi- 
nois. Furthermore, he assured us, that, so far as he could 
learn, two years ago, when he traveled through the States 
of which we speak, the range of prices of agricultural 
lands, in Kentucky, was from three to eight dollars per 
acre ; in Ohio, from sixteen to forty ; in Missouri, from 
two to seven ; in Illinois, from fourteen to thirty ; in Ar- 
kansas, from One to four ; in Iowa, from six to fifteen. 
/ In all the old slave States, as is well known, there are 
vast bodies of land that can be bought for the merest 
trifle. We know an enterprising capitalist in Philadel- 
phia, who owns in his individual name, in the State of 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 131 

Virginia, vm hundred and thirty thousand acres, for whicli he 
paid only thirty-seven and a half cents per acre I Some years 
ago, in certain parts of North Carolina, several large 
tracts were purchased at the rate of twenty-five cents per 
acre I 

Hiram Berdan, the distinguished inventor, who has fre- 
quently seen freedom and slavery side by side, and who 
is, therefore, well qualified to form an opinion of their re- 
lative influence upon society, says : 

"Many comparisons might be drawn between the free and the 
slave States, either of which should be sufficient to satisfy any 
man that slavery is not only ruinous to free labor and enterprise, 
but injurious to morals, and blighting to the soil where it exists 
The comparison between the States of Michigan and Arkansas, 
which were admitted into the Union at the same time, will fairly 
illustrate the difference and value of free and slave labor, as well 
as the difference of moral and intellectual progress in a free and 
in a slave State. 

In 1836 these young Stars were admitted into the constella- 
tion of the Union. Michigan, with one-half the extent of terri- 
tory of Arkansas, challenged her sister State for a twenty years' 
race, and named as her rider, ' Neither slavery, nor involuntary 
servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tole- 
rated in this State.' Arkansas accepted the challenge, and 
named as her rider, ' The General Assembly shall have no power 
to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent 
of the owners.' Thus mounted, these two States, the one free 
and the other slave, started together twenty years ago, and now, 
having arrived at the end of the proposed race, let us review and 
mark the progress of each. ^Michigan comes out in 1856 with 
three times the population of slave Arkansas, with five times 
the assessed value of farms, farming implements and machinery 
and with eight times the number of public schools." 

In the foregoing part of our work, we nave drawn com- 



138 HOW SLAVERY CAN IE. ABOLISHED 

parisons between the old free States and the old slave 
States, and between the new free States and the new slave 
States ; had we sufficient time and space, we might 
with the most significant results, change this method of 
comparison, by contrasting the new free States with the 
old slave States. Can the slavocrats compare Ohio with 
Virginia, Illinois with Georgia, or Indiana with South Car- 
olina, without experiencing the agony of inexpressible 
shame ? If they can, then indeed has slavery debased 
them to a lower deep than we care to contemplate. Here- 
with we present a brief contrast, as drawn by a Maryland 
abolitionist, between the most important old slave State 
and the most important new free State : 

'* Virginia was a State, wealthy and prosperous, when Ohio wat* 
a wilderness belonging to her. She gave that territory away, 
and what is the result ? Ohio supports a population of two mil- 
lion souls, and the mother contains but one and a half millions ; 
yet Virginia is one-third larger than the Buckeye State. Virginia 
contains 61,000 square miles, Ohio but 40.000. The latter sus- 
tains 50 persons to the square mile, while Virginia gives employ- 
ment to but 25 to the square mile. Notwithstanding Virginia's 
superiority in 3'ears and in soil — for she grows tobacco, as well 
as corn and wheat — notwithstandina;her immense coal-fields, and 
her splendid Atlantic ports, Ohio, the infant State, had 21 repre- 
sentatives in Congress in 1850, while Virginia had but 13 — the 
latter having commenced in the Union with 10 Congressmen. 
Compare the progress of these States, and then sav, what is it but 
Free Labor that has advanced Ohio ? and to what, except slavery, 
can we attribute the non-progression of the Old Dominion?" 

As a striking illustration of the selfish and debasing 
influences which slavery exercises over the hearts and 
minds of slaveholders themselves, we will here state the 



HOW SLAl ERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



139 



/act that, when we, the non-slaveholders, remonstrate 
against the continuance of such a manifest wrong and ir- 
humanity— a system of usurpation and outrage so obvi 
ously detrimental to our interests— they fly into a terrible 
passion, exclaiming, among all sorts of horrible threats, 
whicV are not unfrequently executed, "It's none of your 
business !"— meaning to say thereby that their slaves do 
.not annoy us, that slavery affects no one except the mas- 
ters and their chattels personal, and that ive should give 
ourselves no concern about it, whatever I To every man of 
common sense and honesty of purpose the preposterous^ 
ness of this assumption is so evident, that any studied ; 
attempt to refute it would be a positive insult. Would it 
be none of our business, if they were to bring the small-pox 
into the neighborhood, and, with premeditated design, let 
" foul contagion spread ?" Or, if they were to throw a 
pound of strychnine into a public spring, would that be 
none of our business ? Were they to turn a pack of mad , 
dogs loose on the community, would we be performing the 
part of good citizens by closing ourselves within doors 
for the space of nine days, saying nothing to anybody V 
Small-pox is a nuisance ; strychnine is a nuisance ; mac! 
dogs are a nuisance ; slavery is a nuisance ; slaveholders 
are a nuisance, and so are slave-breeders ; it is our 
business, nay, it is our imperative duty, to abate nui 
sauces ; we propose, therefore, with the exception of 
strychnine, which, is the least of all these nuisances, to 
exterminate this catalogue from beginning to end. 

We mean precisely what our words express, when \ve 
Isay we believe thieves are, as a general rule, less amena- 



140 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Lie to the moral law than slaveholders ; and here is the 
basis of our opinion : Ordinarily, thieves wait until we 
acquire a considerable amount of property, and then they 
Bteal a dispensable part of it ; but they deprive no one of 
phj^sical liberty, nor do they fetter the mind ; slaveholders, 
on the contrary, by clinging to the most barbarous relic 
of the most barbarous age, bring disgrace on themselves, 
their neighbors, and their country, depreciate the value 
of their own and others' lands, degrade labor, discourage 
energy and progress, prevent non-slaveholders from accu- 
mulating wealth, curtail their natural rights and privi- 
leges, doom their children to ignorance, and all its atten- 
dant evils, rob the negroes of their freedom, throw a 
damper on every species of manual and intellectual enter- 
prise, that is not projected under their own roofs and for 
their own advantage, and, by other means equally at 
variance with the principles of justice, though but an in- 
significant fractional part of the population, they consti- 
tute themselves the sole arbiters and legislators for the 
entire South. Not merely so ; the thief rarely steals from 
more than one man out of an hundred ; the slaveholder de- 
frauds ninety and nine, and the hundredth does not escape 
aim. Again, thieves steal trifles from rich men ; slave- 
holders oppress poor men, and enact laws for the perpetu- 
ation of their poverty. Thieves practice deceit on the 
wise ; slaveholders take advantage of the ignorant. 

We contend, moreover, that slaveholders are more crim- 
inal than common murderers. We know all slaveholders 
would not wilfully imbue their hands in the blood of their 
fellow-men ; but \\ is a fact, nevertheless, that all slave- 



BOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 1 4 I 

holders are under the shield of a perpetual license tc mur- 
der. This license they have issued to themselves. Ac- 
cording to their own infamous statutes, if the slave raises 
his hand to ward off an unmerited blow, they are permit- 
ted to take his life with impunity. We are personally 
acquainted with three ruffians who have become actual 
murderers under circumstances of this nature. One of 
them killed two negroes on one occasion ; the other two 
have murdered but one each. Neither of them has evcj 
been subjected to even the preliminaries of a trial ; nol 
one of them has ever been arrested ; their own private 
explanations of the homicides exculpated them from all 
manner of blame in the premises. They had done noth- 
ing vi rong in the eyes of the community. The negroes 
made an effort to shield themselves from the tortures of a 
merciless flagellation, and were shot dead on the spot 
Their murderers still live, and are treated as honorable 
members of society I No matter how many slaves or free 
negroes may witness the perpetration of these atrocious 
homicides, not one of them is ever allowed to lift up his 
voice in behalf of his murdered brother. In the South, 
negroes, whether bond or free, are never, under any cir- 
cumstances, permitted to utter a syllable under oath, ex- 
cept for or against persons of their own color ; their tes- 
timony against white persons is of no more consequence 
than the idle zephyr of the summer. 

We shall now introduce four tables of valuable and in- 
teresting statistics, to which piiilosophic and discrimina- 
ting readers will doubtless have frequent occasions to 
refer. Tables 22 and 23 wil «how the area of the several 



142 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

States, in square miles and in acres, and the number cf 
inhabitants to the square mile in each State ; also the 
grand total, or the average, of every statistical column ; 
tables 24 and 25 will exhibit the total number of inhabi- 
tants residing in each State, according to the census of 
1850, the number of whites, the number o^ free colored^ 
and the number of slaves. The recxpituhtions of these 
tables will be followed by a complete list cf the number 
of slaveholders in the United Stat*.s, showing the exact 
number in each Southern State, and in the District of 
(>olumbia. Most warmly do we commend all these statis 
tics to the studious attention of the reader. Their lan- 
guage is more eloquent than any possible combination of 
Roman vowels and consonants. We have spared no pains 
in arranging them so as to express at a single glance the 
great truths of which they are composed ; and we doubt 
not that the plan we have adopted will meet with general 
approbation. Numerically considered, it will be perceived 
that the slaveholders are, in reality, a very insignificant 
class. 0!: them, however, we shall have more to say here' 
after. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



US 



TABI.K NO. XXII. 

AREA OF IKE FREE STATES. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

IVfassachusctts- . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Square Miles- 


Acres. 


Inhabit'iits u 
square inilc. 


155,980 


99,827,200 


.59 


4,674 


2,991.360 


79.33 


55,405 


35,359,200 


15.37 


33,809 


21,637,760 


29.24 


50,914 


32,584,960 


3.78 


31,766 


20,330,240 


18.36 


7,800 


4,902,000 


127.50 


56,243 


35,995,520 


7.07 


9,280 


5,939,200 


34.26 


8,320 


5,324,800 


58.84 


47,000 


30,080,000 


65.90 


39,904 


20,576,900 


49.55 


46,000 


29,440,000 


50.26 


1,306 


835,840 


112.97 


10,212 


6,535,680 


30.76 


53,924 


34,511,360 

392,062,082 


5.66 


012,597 


21,91 



TABI^E NO. XXIII. 

AREA OF THE SLAVE STATES. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia. 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.. .. 

^Missouri.. 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 
Tennessee.. .... 

Texas ... 

Virninia 



Square Miles. 


j Acres. 


Inhabit'nts tc 
square mile. 


50,722 


32,027,490 


15.21 


52,198 


33,406,720 


4.02 


2,120 


1,356,800 


43.18 


59,208 


37,931,520 


1.48 


58,000 


37,120,000 


15.62 


37,680 


24,115,200 


26.07 


41,255 


26,403,200 


12.55 


11,124 


7,119.360 


52.41 


47,156 


30,179,840 


12.86 


67,380 


43,123,200 


10.12 


50,704 


32,450,560 


17.14 


29,385 


18,805,400 


22.75 


45,600 


29,184,000 


21.99 


237,504 


152,002,560 


.80 


61,352 


39,165,280 
544,926720 


23.17 


851,448 


11.29 



U4 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



TABLE NO. XXIV. 

POPULATION OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 


"Whites. 


Free Colored. 


Total. 


California 

Connecticut 


91,635 
363,099 
846,034 
977,154 
191,881 
581.813 
985,450 
395,071 
317,456 
465,509 
3,048,325 
1,955,050 
2,258,160 
143.875 
313,402 
304,756 


962 

7,693 

5,436 

11,262 

333 

1,356 

9,064 

2,583 

620 

23,810 

49,069 

25,279 

53,626 

3,670 

718 

635 


92,597 
370 792 


Illinois 


851 470 


Indiana 


988 416 


Iowa 


192,214 

583,169 

994,514 

397,654 

317,976 

489,555 

3,097,394 

1,980,329 

2,311,786 

147,545 

314 120 


Maine 

Massachusetts 


Michigan 


New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 


Pennsylvania 


Rhode Island 


Vermont 


Wisconsin 


305,391 




13,233.670 


196,116 


13,431,922 



TABLE NO. XXV. 

POPULATION OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina.. . 
South Carolina... 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Whites. 


Free 
Colored. 


Slaves. 


Total 


426,514 


2,265 


342,844 


771,623 


162,189 


608 


47,100 


209,897 


71,169 


18,073 


2,290 


91,532 


47,203 


932 


39,310 


87,445 


521,572 


2,931 


381,622 


906,185 


761,413 


10,011 


210,981 


982;405 


255,491 


17,462 


244,809 


517,762 


417,943 


74,723 


90,368 


583,034 


295,718 


930 


309,878 


606.326 


592,004 


2,618 


87,422 


682,014 


553,028 


27,463 


288.548 


869,039 


274,563 


8,960 


384,984 


663,507 


756,836 


6,422 


239,459 


1,002,717 


154,034 


397 


58,161 


212,592 


894,800 


54,333 


472,528 


1,421,661 



6,184,477 ! 228,138 



3,200,361 I 9,612,970 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



145 



RECAPITULATIOX AREA. 

Square Miles. 

Area of tLe Slave States 851 ,448 

A rea of the Free States 612,597 



AortoH. 
544,926,720 
392,062,082 



Balances in favor of Slave States. . .238,851 

RECAPITULATIOX POPULATION 1850. 

Whites. 
Populatior. of tlie Free States ....13,233,670 
Population of the Slave States . .. 6,184,477 



152,861,638 



Total. 
13,434,022 
9,612,976 

3,821,946 



Balances in favor of the Free States 7,049,193 

FREE COLORED AND SLAVE 1850. 

I-'ree Negroes in the Slave States 228,138 

Free Negroes in the Freg States 196,116 



Excess of Free Negroes in the Slave States 32,022 

Slaves in the Slave States 3,200,364 

.7ree Negroes in the Slave States 228,138 



Aggregate Negro Population of the Slave States in 1850. ..3,428,502 



THE TERRITORIES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



Area in Square Miles. 
Indian Territory 71,127 



Kansas " 

Minnesota " 
Nebraska " 
N. Mexir ) " 
Oregon " 

Utah 

Washington " 
Columbia, Dist. of. 



. 114,798 
. 166,025 
, 335,882 
. 207,007 
185,030 
269,170 
123,022 
60 



Population. 

6,077 

61,547 
13,294 
11,380 

*5 1,687 

143,986 



Aggregate of Area and Population, 1,472,121 

* Of the 5L687 inhabi tan's iu the District of Columbia, in 1850, 10,057 wore Fr©i> 
Colored, and 3,087 were slavea 



146 HOW SLAVESY CA-ST BE ABOLISHEI 



l^JMBER OF SLAVEHOLDERS IX THE UNITEH STATES 1850. 

Alabama 29,295 

Arkansas 5,999 

Colnmbia, District of, 1,477 

Delaware 809 

Florida 3,520 

Georgia 38,456 

Kentucky 38,385 

Louisiana 20,670 

Maryland 16,040 

Mississippi 23,116 

Missouri 19,185 

North Carolina 28,303 

South Carolina ^ 25,596 

Tennessee 33.861 

Texas > 7,747 

Virginia 55,063 

Total Number of Slaveholders in the United States 347/525 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS 1850. 

Holders of 1 slave 6S,820 

Holders of 1 and under 5 105,683 

Holders of 5 and under 10 80,765 

Holders.of 10 and under 20 64,595 

Holders of 20 and under 50 29,733 

Holders of 50 and under 100 6,196 

Holders of 100 and under 200 1,479 

Holders of 200 and under 300 187 

Holders of 300 and under 500. 56 

Holders of 500 and under 1,000 9 

Holders of 1,000 an i over -. 2 



Aggregate Number Df Slaveholders in the United States. . . . 347,5^ 



now SLAVERY CAN* BE AROilSHED, HI 

It thus appearo tliat there arc in tlic United States, three 
hundred and fortj'-seven thousand five hundred and twen 
ty-five slaveholders. But this appearance is deceptive 
The actual number is certainly less than two hundred 
thousand. Professor Do Bow, the Superintendent of the 
Census, informs us that "the number includes slave- 
hirers," and furthermore, that "where the party owns 
slaves in different counties, or in different States, he will 
be entered more than once." Now every Southerner, who 
has any practical knowledge of affairs, must know, and 
does know, that every New Year's day, like almost everj 
other day, is desecrated in the South, by publicly hiring 
out slaves to large numbers of non-slaveholders. The 
slave-owners, who are the exclusive manufacturers of pub 
lie sentiment, have popularized the dictum that white ser- 
vants, decency, virtue, and justice, are unfashionable ; and 
there are, we are sorry to say, nearly one hundred and 
sixty thousand non-slaveholding sycophants, who have 
subscribed to this false philosophy, and who are giving 
constant encouragement to the infamous practices of 
slaveholding and slave-breeding, by hiring at least one 
slave every year. 

In the Southern States, as in all other slave countries, 
there are three odious classes of mankind; the slaves 
themselves, who are cowards ; the slaveholders, who are 
tyrants ; and the non-slaveholding slave-hirers, who are 
lickspittles. Whether either class is really entitled to the 
regards of a gentleman is a matter of grave doubt. The 
slaves are pitiable ; the slaveholders are detestable : the 
slave-hireis are contemptible. 



t48 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

With tlie statistics at our command, it is impossible for 
as to ascertain the exact numbers of slaveholders and non- 
slaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States ; but we have 
data which will enable us to approach very near to the 
facts. The town from which we hail, Salisbury, the capi- 
tal of Rowan county, North Carolina, contains about twen- 
ty-three hundred inhabitants, including three hundred and 
seventy-two slaves, fifty-one slaveholders, and forty-three 
non-slaveholding slave-hirers. Taking it for granted that 
tliis town furnishes a fair relative proportion of all the 
slaveholders, and non-slaveholding slave-hirers in the 
slave States, the whole number of the former, including 
tliose who have been " entered more than once,^' is one 
hundred and eighty-eight thousan4 five hundred and fifty- 
one ; of the latter, one hundred and fifty-eight thousand 
nine hundred and seventy-four ; and, now, estimating that 
there are in ^faryland, Virginia, and other grain-growing 
States, an aggregate of two thousand slave-owners, who 
have cotton plantations slocJied with negroes in the far 
South, and who have been " entered more than once," we 
find, as the result of our calculations, that the total num- 
ber of actual slaveholders in the Union, is precisely one 
hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and fifty- 
one — as follows : 

Number of actual slaveholders in the United States 186,551 

Number " entered more than once" 2,000 

Number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers .• 158,974 

Aggregate number, according to De Bow 347,625 

The greater number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers, are 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BF- ABOIJSHED. 140 

a kind of third-rate aristocrats — persons wlio formerly 
owned slaves, but whom slavery, as is its custom, has 
dragged down to poverty, leaving them, in their false and 
shiftless pride, to eke out a miserable existence over the 
hapless chattels personal of other men. 
A^o it seems that the total number of actual slave-own 

rs, in<.^uding their entire crew of cringing lickspittles 
against whom we have to contend, is but three hundred 
and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five. 
Against this army for the defense and propagation of sla- 
very, we think it will be an easy matter — independent of 
the negroes, who, in nine cases out of ten, would be de- 
lighted with an opportunity to cut their masters' throats, 
and without accepting of a single recruit from either of 
the free States, England, France or Germany — to muster 
one at least three times as large, and far more respectable 
for its utter extinction. (jWe hope, however, and believe, 
that the matter in dispute may be adjusted without array- 
ing these armies against each other in hostile attitude. 
We desire peace, not war — -justice, not blood. Give us 
fair-play, secure to us the right of discussion, the freedom 
of speech, and we will settle the difficulty at the ballot 
box, not on the battle-ground — by force of reason, not by 
force of arms. But we are wedded to one purpose from 
which no earthly power can ever divorce us. We are de- ) 
termined to abolish slavery at all hazards — in defiance of 
all ihe opposition, of whatever nature, which it is possible 
for the slavocrats to bring against us. Of this they may 
take due notice, and govern themselves accordingly. 

Before wt proceed further, it may be necessary to calC 



150 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE /lBOLISIISD. 

attention to tlie fact that, tlioiigb the ostensible proprie- 
torship of the slaves is vested in fewer individuals than 
we have usually counted in our calculations concerning 
them, the force and drift of our statistics remain nnim- 
paired. In the main, all our figures are correct. Tlie 
tables which we have prepared, especially, and the reQi- 
pitulations of those tables, may be relied on with all the 
confidence that is due to American oflScial integrity ; for, 
as we have substantially remarked on a previous occasion, 
the particulars of which they are composed have been 
obtained from the returns of competent census agents. 
w\\o, with Prof. Do Bow as principal, were expressly em- 
ployed to collect them. As for our minor labors in the 
Bcience cf numbers, we cheerfully submit them to the can- 
did scrutiny of the impartial critic. 

A majority of the slaveholders with whom we are ac- 
quainted — and we happen to know a few dozen more than 
we care to know — own, or pretend to own, at least fifteen 
negroes each ; some of them are the masters of more than 
fifty each ; and we have had the honor (!) of an introduc- 
tion to one man who is represented as the owner of six- 
teen hundred I It is said that if all the lands of this lat- 
ter worthy were in one tract, they might be formed into 
two counties of more than ordinary size ; he owns plan- 
tations and woodlands in three cotton-growing States. 

The quantity of land owned by the slaveholder is gene- 
rally in proportion to the number of negroes at his ' quar- 
ter ;" the master of only one or two slaves, if engaged in 
agriculture, seldom owns less than three hundred acr»!s ; 
the holder of eight or ten slaves usually owns from a thou- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 151 

sand to fifteen hundred acres ; five thousand acres arc not 
unfrequently found in the possession of the master of fift} 
slaves ; while in Columbia, South Carolina, about twelve 
months ago, a certain noted slaveholder was pointed ou^ 
to us, and reported as the owner of nearly two hundrc* 
thousand acres in the State of Mississippi. How the greu 
mass of illiterate poor whites, a majority of whom are the 
indescribably wretched tenants of these slavocratic land- 
sharks, are specially imposed upon and socially outlawed, 
we shall, if w^e have time and space, take occasion to ex- 
plain in a subsequent chapter. 

Thus far, in giving expression to our sincere and settlec 
opinions, we have endeavored to show, in the first place, 
that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political 
evil — a dire enemy to true wealth and national greatness, 
and an atrocious crime against both God and man ; and, 
in the second place, that it is a paramount duty which wo 
owe to heaven, to the earth, to America, to humanity, to 
our posterity, to our consciences, and to our pockets, tf' 
adopt efiectual and judicious measures for its immediate 
abolition. The questions now arise. How can the evil bo 
averted ? I What are the most prudent and practical means 
that can be devised for the abolition of slavery ? In the 
solution of these problems it becomes necessary to deal 
with a multiplicity of stubborn realities. And yet, we can 
see no reason why North Carolina, in her sovereign capa- 
city, may not, with equal ease and success, do what forty- 
five other States of the world have done within the last 
for'y-five years. Nor do we believe any good reason exist^j 
why Virginia should not perform as great a deed in 18r)9 



152 BO'W SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

as did New-York in 1799. Massachusetts abolislied slntr- 
ery in 1180 ; would it not be a masterly stroke of policy 
in Tennessee, and every other slave State, to abolish it in 
or before 18G0? 

Not long sind^, a slavocrat, writing on this subject, said, 
apologetically, " we frankly admit that slavery is a mon- 
strous evil -J but what are we to do with an institution 
which has baffled the wisdom of our greatest statesmen ?" 
Unfortunately for the South, since the days of Washington, 
Jefferson, Madison, and their illustrious compatriots, she 
has never had more than half a dozen s-tatesmen, all told ; 
of mere |X)liticians, wiie-puUers, and slave-driving dema- 
gogues, she has had enough, and to s.pare ; but of states- 
men, in the true sense of the term, she has had, and now 
has, but precious few — fewer just at this time, perhaps, 
than ever before. It is far from a matter of surprise to us 
that slavery has, for such a long period, baffled the " wis<- 
dom'^ of the oligarchy ; but our surprise is destined to cul- 
minate in amazement, if the wisdom of the non-slaveholders 

1 

does not soon baffle slavery. /l/;_/f. 

From the eleventh year previous to the close of the 
eighteenth century down to the present moment, slavehold- 
ers and slave-breeders, who, to speak naked truth, are, as 
a general thing, unfit to occupy any honorable station in 
life, have, by chicanery and usurpation, wielded all the 
official power of the South ; and, excepting the patriotic 
services of the noble abolitionists above-mentioned, the sole 
aim and drift of their legislation has been to aggrandize 
themselves, to strengthen slavery, and to keep tl;e poor 
whit-OS, the cons'iitutional uLajority, bowed down iu thp 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 153 

deepest depths of degradation. We propose to subvert 
tl'is entire system of oligarchal despotism. We think theie 
should be sonie legislation for decent white men, not alone 
for negroes and slaveholders. Slavery lies at the root of 
all the shame, poverty, ignorance, tyranny and imbecility 
of the South ; slavery must be thoroughly eradicated ; let 
this be done, and a glorious future will await us. 

The statesmen who are to abolish slavery in Kentucky, 
must be mainly and independently constituted by the non- 
slaveholders of Kentucky ; so in every other slave State. 
Past experience has taught us the sheer folly of ever ex- 
pecting voluntary justice from the slaveholders. Their 
illicit intercourse with " the mother of harlots" has been 
kept up so long, and their whole natures have, in conse- 
quence, become so depraved, that there is scarcely a 
spark of honor or magnanimity to be found amongst them 
As well might one expect to hear highwaymen clamoring 
for a universal interdict against traveling, as to expect 
slaveholders to pass laws for the abolition of slavery. 
Under all the circumstances, it is the duty of the non- 
slaveholders to mark out an independent course for them- 
selves, to steer entirely clear of the oligarchy, and to 
utterly contemn and ignore the many vile imstruments of 
power, animate and inanimate, which have been so freely 
and so effectually used for their enslavement. Now is the 
time for them to assert their rights and liberties ; never 
before was there such an appropriate period to strike foi 
Freedom in the South. 

Had it not been for tlie better sense, the purer patriotr 
ism, and the more practical justice of the non-slaveholders, 



154 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHEI 

the Mi idle States and New England would still be groan, 
ing and groyeling under the ponderous burden of slavery ; 
New-York would never have risen above the dishonorable 
level of Virginia ; Pennsylvania, trampled beneath the 
iron-heel of the black code, would have remained the an- 
progressive parallel of Georgia ; Massachusetts would 
have continued till the present time, and Heaven only 
knows how much longer, the contemptible coequal of 
South Carolina 

Succeeded by the happiest moral cfiects and the grand- 
est physical results, we have seen slavery crushed be- 
neath the wisdon of the non-slaveholding statesmen of 
the North ; followed by corresponding influences and 
achievements, many of us who have not yet passed the 
meridian of life, are destined to see it equally crushed 
beneath the wisdom of the non-slaveholding Statesmen of 
the South. With righteous indignation, we enter our dis- 
claimer against the base yet baseless admission that 
Louisiana and Texas are incapable of producing as great 
statesmen as Rhode Island and Connecticut. Wliat has 
been done for New Jersey by the statesmen of New Jer- 
sey, can be done for North Carolina by the statesmen of 
North Carolina ; the wisdom of the former State has abol- 
ished slavery ; as sure as the earth revolves on its axis, 
the wisdom of the latter will not do less. 
. That our plan for the abolition of slavery, is tho best 
that can be devised, we have not the vanity to contend ; 
but that it is a gv od one, and will do to act upon until a 
better shall havi been suggested, we do firmly and con- 
scientiously believe. Tliough but little skilled in the deli- 



now Si,>VERY CAN BE AB0LI3I\ED. 155 

caie art of surgerx, we have pretty thorouglily probed 
slavery, the friglitful tumor on the body politic, and have, 
we think, ascertained the precise remedies requisite for a 
speedy rnd perfect cure. Possibly tlie less ardent friends 
of freedom may object to our prescription, on the ground 
that some of its ingredients are too griping, and that it 
will cost the patient a deal of most excruciating pain. 
But let them remember that the patient is exceedingly 
refractory, that the case is a desperate one, and that dras- 
tic remedies are indispensably necessary. When they 
shall have invented milder yet equally efficacious ones, 
it will be time enough to discontinue the use of ours — 
then no one will be readier than we to discard the infalli- 
ble strong recipe for the infallible mild. Not at the per- 
secution of a few thousand slaveholders, but at the resti- 
tution of natural rights and prerogatives to several mil- 
lions of non-slaveholders, do we aim. 
( Inscribed on the banner, which we herewith unfurl to 
the world, with the full and fixed determination to stand 
by it or die by it, unless one of more virtuous efficacy shall 
be presented, are the mottoes which, in substance, embody 
the principles, as we conceive, that should govern us in 
our patriotic warfare against the most subtle and insivU- 
ous foe that ever menaced the inalienable rights and liber- 
tics and dearest interests of America : 
1st. Thorough Organization and Independent Politica 

Action on the part of the Non-Slavelioiding whites c 

the South. 
2nd. Ineligibility of Slavf holders — Never another vote l( 

the Trafficker in Human Flesh 



f 



156 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

3rd. No Co-operation with Slaveholders in Politics — No 
Fellowship with them in Religion —^-No Affiliation with 
them in Society. 

4th. No Patronage to Slaveholding Merchants — No Guest- 
ship in Slave-waiting Hotels — No Fees to Slaveholding 
Lawyers — No Employment of Slaveholding Physicians 
— No Audience to Slaveholding Parsons. \ 

5th. No Recognition of Pro-slavery Men, except as Rnf- 
^ fians, Outlaws, and Criminals. 

6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Pro-slavery 
Newspapers. 

7th. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free White 
Labor. 

8. No more Hiring of Slaves by Non-slaveholders. 

9th. Immediate Death to Slavery, or if not immediate, 
unqualiiicd Proscription of its Advocates during the Pe- 
riod of its Existence. 

10th. A Tax of Sixty Dollars on every Slaveholder for each J 
and every Nqgro in his Possession at the present time, 
or at any intermediate time between now and the 4 th 
of July, 1863 — said Money to be Applied to the trans- 
portation of the Blacks to Liberia, to their Colonization 
in Central or South America, or to their Comfortable 
Settlement within the Boundaries of the United States. 

11th. An additional Tax of Forty Dollars per annum to be 
levied annually, on every Slaveholder for each and every 
Negro found in his possession after the 4th of July, 
1863 — said Money to be paid into the hands of the Ne- 
groes so held in Slavery, or, in cases of death, to their 
next of kin, and to be used by them at their own option 



I 
HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 161 

This, then, is the outline of our scheme for the abolition 
of slavery in the Southern States. Let it be acted upon 
with due promptitude, and, as certain as truth is mightier 
than error, fifteen years will not elapse before every foot 
of territory, from the mouth of the Delaware to the embog- 
ning of the Rio Grande, will glitter with the jewels of 
freedom. Some time during this year, next, or the year 
following, let there be a general convention of non-slave- 
holders from every slave State in the Union, to deliberate 
on the momentous issues now pending) First, let them 
adopt measures for holding in restraint the diabolical ex- 
cesses of the oligarchy ; secondly, in order to cast off tiie 
thraldom which the infamous slave-power has fastenc^d 
upon tliem, and, as the first step necessary to be taken to 
regain the inalienable rights and liberties with which they 
were invested by Nature, but of which they have been 
divested by the accursed dealers in human flesh, let thein 
devise ways and means for the complete annihilation of 
slavery ; thirdly, let them put forth an equitable and com- 
prehensive platform, fully defining their position, and ih- 
viting the active sympathy and co-operation of the mil- 
lions of down-trodden non-slaveholders throughout the 
Southern and Southwestern States. Let all these things 
be done, not too hastily, but with calmness, deliberation, 
prudence, and circumspection ; if need be, let the dele- 
gates to the convention continue in session one or two 
weeks ; only let their labors be wisely and thoroughly per- 
lormed ; let them, on Wednesday morning, present to the 
poor whites of the South, a well-digested scheme for the 
reclamation of their ancient rights and prerogatives, and, 



158 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

on the Thursday following-, slaveiy in the United States will 
be worth absolutely less than nothing ; for then, besides be- 
ing so vile and precarious that nobody will want it, it will 
»e a lasting reproach to those in whose hands it is lodged. 

Were it not that other phases of the subject admonisii 
js to be economical of space, we could suggest more than 
a dozen different plans, either of which, if scrupulously 
carried out, would lead to a wholesome, speedy, and per- 
fect termination of slavery. Under all the circumstances, 
however, it might be difficult for us — perhaps it would 
not be the easiest thing in the world for any body else — 
to suggest a better plan than the one above. Let it, or 
one embodying its principal features, be adopted forth 
with, and the last wail of slavery will soon be heard, 
growing fainter and fainter, till it dies utterly away, to be 
succeeded by the jubilant shouts of emancipated millions. 

Henceforth, let it be distinctly understood that ownership 
in slaves constitutes ineligibility — that it is a crime, as 
we verily believe it is, to vote for a slavocrat for any office 
whatever. Indeed, it is our honest conviction that all the 
pro-slavery slaveholders, who are alone responsible for the 
continuance of the baneful institution among us, deserve 
to be at once reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals 
that lie fettered within the cells of our public prisons. 
Beyond the povver of computation is the extent of the moral, 
social, civil, and political evils which they have brought, 
and are still bringing, on the country. Were it possible 
that -the whole number could be gathered together and 
transformed into four equal gangs of licensed robbers, ruf- 
fians, thieves, and murderers, society, we feel assured, 



now SLiVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 159 

would suffer less from their atrocities then than it does 
now. Let the wholesome public sentiment of the non- 
slaveholders be vigilant and persevering in bringing them 
down to their proper level. Long since, and in the most 
unjust and cruel manner, have they socially outlawed ti!-- 
non-slaveholders ; now security against further oppression:, 
and indemnity for past grievances, make it incumbent on 
the non-slaveholders to cast them into the identical pit 
that they dug for their betters — thus teaching them how to 
catcli a Tartar ! 

At the very moment we write, as has been the case ever 
since the United States have had a distinct national exist- 
ence, and as will always continue to be the case, unless 
right triumplis over wri)iig, all the civil, political, and other 
offices, within the gift of the South, arc filled with negro- 
nursed incumbents from the ranks of that execrable band 
of misanthropes — three hundred and forty-seven thousand 
in number — wdio, for the most part, obtain their living by 
breeding, buying and selling slaves. The magistrates in 
the villages, the constables in the districts, tlie commis- 
sioners of the towns, the mayors of the cities, the sheriffs 
of the counties, the judges of the various courts, the mem- 
bers of the legislatures, the governors of the States, the 
representatives and senators in Congress — are all slave- 
holders. Nor does the catalogue of their usurpations end 
here. Through the most heart-sickening arrogance and 
bribery, they have obtained control of the General Govern- 
ment, and all the consuls, ambassadors, envoys extraordi- 
nary and ministers plenipotentiary, who are chosen frum 
Uie South, and commissioned to foreign countries, are 



160 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

selectod with special reference to the purity of tlieir pro 
slavery antecedents. If credentials have ever been issued 
to a single non-slaveholder of the Soutli, we are ignorant 
of both the fact and the hearsay ; indeed, it would be very 
strange if this much abused class of persons were permit- 
ted to hold important offices abroad, when they are not 
allowed to hold unimportant ones at home. 

And, then, there is the Presidency of the United States, 
which office has been held forty-eight years by slaveholders 
from the South, and only ticenty years by non-slaveholders 
from the North. Nor is this the full record of oligarchal 
obtrusion. On an average, the offices of Secretary of 
State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, 
Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, Postmaster-Gen- 
eral and Attorney-General, have been under the control of 
slave-drivers nearly two-thirds of the time. The Chief Jus- 
tices and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, the Presidents pro tcm. of the Senate, 
and the Speakers of the House of Representatives, have, 
in a large majority of instances, been slave-breeders from 
the Southern side of the Potomac. Five slaveholding Pres- 
idents have been reelected to the chief magistracy of the 
Republic, while no non-slaveholder has ever held the office 
more than a single term. Thus we see plainly that even 
the non-slaveholders of the North, to whose freedom, en- 
ergy, enterprise, intelligence, wealth, population, power, 
progress, and prosperit}^ our countrj'' is almost exclusively 
indebted for its high position among the nations of the 
earth, have been arrogantly denied a due participation in 
the honors of federal office. When " the sum of all viliai-. 



HOW SLAVERY CAX BE ADOLISIIEn. IGl 

ies" shall have ceased to exist, then the rights of the non 
slaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of 
the West, will be duly recognized and respected ; not before. 

With all our heart, we hope and believe it is the full 
and fixed determination of a majority of the more intelli- 
gent and patriotic citizens of this Republic, that the Pres- 
idential chair shall never again be filled by a slavocrat. 
Safely may we conclude that the doom of the oligarchy is 
already sealed with respect to that important and dignified 
station ; it now behooves us to resolve, with equal firm- 
ness and effect, that, after a certain period during the next 
decade of years, no slaveholder shall occupy any position 
in the Cabinet, that no slave-breeder shall be sent as a di- 
plomatist to any foreign country, that no slave-driver shall 
be permitted to bring further disgrace on either the Senate 
or the House of Representatives, that the chief justices, 
associate justices, and judges of the several courts, the 
governors of the States, the members of the legislatures, 
and all the minor functionaries of the land, shall be free 
from the heinous crime of ownership in man. 

I^Jhe last^ixty-eight years, slaveholders have been 
the sole and constant representatives of the South, and 
what have they accomplished? It requires but little time 
and few words, to tell the story of their indiscreet and 
unhallowed performances. In fact, with what we have 
already said, gestures alone would sulBce to answer the 
inquiry. Wejian make neither a more truthful nor em- 
phatic reply than to point to our thinly inhabited States, 
to our fields despoiled of their virgin soil, to the despicable 
prfce 0/ lands, to our unvi sited cities anT towns, to our 



1G2 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

vacant harbors and idle water-power, to the dreary ab- 
sence df~slnppmg'an(i manufactories^ to .ouj_jinpensioned[^ 
soldiers of the revohition, to the millions of li^?^^ monu- 
ments of iGfnorance, to the poverty of the whites, and to 
the wretchedness of the blacks. 

Either directly or indirectly, are slave-driving dema- 
gogues, who have ostentatiously set up pretensions to 
statesmanship, responsible for every dishonorable weak- 
ness and inequality that exists between the North and the 
South. Let them shirk the responsibility if they can ; but 
it is morally impossible for them to do so. We know 
how ready they have always been to cite the numerical 
strength of the North, as a valid excuse for their inability 
to procure appropriations from the General Government, 
for purposes of internal improvement, for the establish- 
ment of lines of ocean steamers to South American and 
European ports, and for the accomplishment of othe.* ob- 
jects. Before that apology ever escapes from th-^ir ii{)s 
again, let them remember that the numerical weakness of 
the South is wholly attributable to their own villainous 
statism. Had the Southern States, in accordance with 
the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, abolished slavery at the same time the Northern 
States abolished it, there would have been, long since, 
and most assuredly at this moment, a larger, wealthier, 
wiser, and more powerful population, south of Mason and 
Dixon's line, than there now is north of it. This fact be- 
ing so well established that no reasonable man denies it, 
it is evident that the oligarchy will have to devise an- 
other subterfuge for even temporary relief. 



now ST.AVKRV CAN BE ABOLISHED. 163 

Until slavciy and si wcholdcrs cease to be the only 
favored objects of legis\atioii in the Soiitt, the North will 
continue to maintain the ascendency in every important 
particuLar. With those loathsome objects out of the way, 
it wouhl not take the non-slaveholders of the South more 
than a quarter of a century to bring her up, in all re- 
spects, to a glorious equality with the North ; nor would 
it take them much longer to surpass the latter, which is 
the most vigorous and honorable rival that they have in 
the world. Three quarters of a century hence, if slavery 
is abolished within the next ten years, as it ought to be, 
the South will, we believe, be as much greater than the 
North, as the North is now greater than the South. Three 
quarters of a century hence, if the South retains slavery, 
which God forbid ! she will be to the North much the 
same that Poland is to Russia, that Cuba is to Spain, or 
that Ireland is to England. 

AVliat we want and must have, as the only sure means 
of attaining to a position w^orthy of Sovereign States in 
this eminently progressive and utilitarian age, is an ener- 
getic, intelligent, enterprising, virtuous, and unshackled 
population ; an untrammeled press, and the Freedom of 
Speech. For ourselves, as white people, and for the ne 
grocs and other persons of whatever color or conditiou, 
we demand all the rights, interests and prerogatives, that 
are guarantied to corresponding classes of mankind in the 
North, in England, in France, in Germany, or in anyotlicn* 
civilized and enlightened country. Any proposition tliat 
may be offered co iceding less than this demand, will be 
promptly and disdainfully rejected. 



164 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLTSnED. 

Speaking of the non-slaveh elders of the Soutli, Goorg-o 
M. Weston, a zealous co-laborer in the cause of Freedom, 
says :— 

'' The non-slavehokling whites of the South, being not less 
tlian seven-tenths of the whole number of whites, would seeui 
to be entitled to some enquiry into their actual condition; and 
especially, as they have no real political weight or consideration 
in the country, and little opportunity to speak for themselves. 
I have been for twenty years a reader of Southern newspapers, 
and a reader and hearer of Congressional debates ; but, in all 
that time, I do not recollect ever to have seen^^Or heard these 
non-slaveholding whites referred to b}" Southern ' gentlemen,' as 
constituting any part of what they call '■the South.'' When the 
rights of the South, or its wrongs, or its policy, or its interests. 
or its institutions, are spoken of, reference is alwa3's intended_to 
the rights, wrongs, policy, interests, and institutioi^s of the three 
hundred and fortA'-seven thousand slaveholders. Niib.ody gets 
into Congress from the South but by their direction ; nobody 
speaks at Was-hington for any Southern interest except theirs. 
Yet there is, at the South, quite another interest than theirs ; 
embracing from tv\-o to three times as many white people ; and. 
as we shall presenlly see, entitled to the deejiest sympathy and 
commiseration, in view of the material, intellectual, and moral 
privations to which it has been subjected, the degradation to 
which it has already been reduced, and the still more fearful 
degradation with which it is threatened by the inevitable opera- 
tion of existing causes and influences." 

The following extract, from a paper on " Domestic 
Manufactures in the South and West," published by ^\. 
Tarver, of Missouri, may be appropriately introduced in 
this connection : — 

" The non-slaveholders possess, generally, but very small means. 
and the land which tlioy possess is almost universally poor, and 
60 sterile tliat a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived fn;ni 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 165 

Its cultivation ; and the more fertile soil, being in the pcesession 
of the slaveholders, must ever remain out of the power of those 
who have none. This state of things is a great drawback, and 
bears heavily upon and depresses the moral energies of the 
poorer classes. The acquisition of a respectable position in the 
scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless 
]iur!?uit. and many oftliem settle down into habits of idleness, and 
b^'oonie the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And 
1 laiiient to say that I have observed of late years, that an evi- 
dent detcriDration is taking place in this part of the population, 
the youncer portion of it being less educated, less industrious, 

and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors.'- 

■ * '^• 

E({uar.y worthy of attention is the testimony of Gov. 
ILimrao-.id, of South Carolina, who says : — 

•' According to the best calculation, which, in the absence of 
statistio ficts. can be made, it is believed, that of the three hun- 
dred thousand white inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not 
less than fifty thousand whose industry, such as it is, and com- 
pens.',ted as it is. is not, in the present condition of things, and 
does not ju'omise to be hereafter, adequate to procure them, 
lionLSth', such a support as every white person is, and feels him- 
seli entitled to. And this, next to emigration, is, perhaps, the 
heaviest of the weights that press upon the springs of our pros- 
perity. Most of these now follow agricultural pursuits, in fee- 
ble, yet injurious competition with slave labor. Some, perhaps, 
not more from inclination, than from the want of due encourage- 
nKmt, can scarcely be said to work at all. They obtain a preca- 
rious subsistence, by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, 
sometimes by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is, 
in its effects, far worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them 
to plunder for their benefit." 

Conjoined with the sundry plain straightforward facts 
whirh have issuea' from our owa pen, these extracts show 
coDclusivelj that immedif.te and independent political 



166 now SLAVERY AN BE ABOLISHED. 

action on the part of the non-slaveholding whites of the 

South, is, with them, a matter, not only of positive duty, 

but also of the utmost importance. As yet, it is in their 

power to rescue the South from the gulf of shame and 

guilt, into which slavery has plunged her ; but if they do 

not soon arouse themselves from their apathy, this power 

will be wrenched from them, and then, unable to resist the 

strong arm of the oppressor, they will be completely de- 

■(^ graded to a social and political level with the negroes, 

/ jvhose condition of servitude will, in the meantime, be- 

\j|come far more abject and forlorn than it is now 

^ ''i^r-^-^n addition to the reasons which we have alreadv as- 
■ / . 

signed why no sUivocrat should, in the future, be elected 

to any otRce whatever, there are others that deserve to be 

carefully considered. Among these may be mentioned the 

illbreeding and the ruffianism of slaveholding officials. 

Tedious indeed would be the task to enumerate all the 

homicides, duels, assaults and batteries, and other crimes, 

of which they are the authors in the course of a sin^;!e 

year. To the general reader their career at the seat of 

government is well known ; there, on frequent occasions, 

choking with rage at seeing their wretched sophistries 

scattered to the winds by the sound, logical reasoning of 

the champions of Freedom, they have overstepped the 

):()unds of common decency, vacated the chair of honora- 

i>le controversy, and, in the most brutal and cowardly 

manner, assailed their unarmed opponents with bludgeons, 

bowie knives and pistols. Compared with some of their 

barbarism? at home, however, their frenzied onslaughts ai 

the national Capital have been but the simplest broaches 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 16t 

oi civil deportment ; and it is only for the purpose of 
aAoidin- personalities that we now refrain from divulging 
a few instances of the unparalleled atrocities which they 
have perpetrated in legislative halls South of the Poto- 
mac. Nor is it alone in the national and State legisla- 
tures that they substitute brute force for genteel behavior 
and acnteness of intellect. Neither court-houses nor pub- 
lie streets, hotels nor private dwellings, rum-holes nor 
law-offices, are held sacred from their murderous conflicts. 
About certain silly abstractions that no practical business 
man ever allows to occupy his time or attention, they are 
eternally wrangling ; and thus it is that rencounters, 
duels, homicides, and other demonstrations of person^* 
violence, have become so popular in all slaveholding com- 
munities. A few years of entire freedom from the cares 
and perplexities of public life, would, we have no doubt, 
greatly improve both their manners and their morals ; and 
we suggest that it is a Christian duty, which devolves on 
the non-slaveholders of the South, to disrobe them of the 
mantle of office, which they have so long worn with dis- 
crace to themselves, injustice to their constituents, and 
ruin to their country. 

But what shall we say of such men as Botts, Stuart, and 
Macfarland of Virginia ; of Raynor, Morehead, Miller, 
Stanly, Graves, and Graham of North Carolina ; of Davis 
and Hoffman of Maryland ; of Blair and Benton of Mis- 
souri ; of the Marshalls of Kentucky ; and of Etheridge of 
Tennessee ? All these gentlemen, and many others of the 
sumo scliool, entertain, we believe, sentiments similar to 
tho6e that wore entertained by the immortal Fathers of the 



168 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Republic — that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and 
"political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest practical pe- 
riod-^— and if they do, in order to secure our votes, it is only 
necessary for them to " have the courage of their opinions," 
to renounce slavery, and to come out frankly, fairly and 
Sfjuarely, in favor of freedom. To neither of these patri- 
otic sons of the South, nor to any one of the class to which 
they belong, would we give any offence whatever. In our 
strictures on the criminality of pro-slavery demagogues 
we have had heretofore, and shall have hereafter, no sort 
of reference to any respectable slaveholder — by which we 
mean, any slaveholder who admits the injustice and inhu- 
manity of slavery, and who is not averse to the discussion 
of measures for its speedy and total extinction. Such 
slaveholders are virtually on our side, that is, on the side 
of the non-slaveholding whites, with whom they may very 
properly be classified. On this point, once for all, we desire 
to be distinctly understood ; for it would be manifestly un- 
just not to discriminate between the anti-slavery proprie- 
tor who owns slaves by the law of entailment, and the pro- 
slavery proprietor who engages in the traffic and becomes 
an aider and abettor of the institution from sheer turpitude 
of heart ; hence the propriety of this special disclaimer. 

If we have a correct understanding of the positions 
u'bich they assumed, some of the gentlemen whose names 
are written above, gave, during the last presidential cam- 
paign, ample evidence of their unswei*ving devotion to the 
interests of the great majority of the people, the non-slave- 
holding whites ; and it is our unbiassed opinion that a 
more positive truth is no where recorded in Holy Writ, 



HOVr SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 169 

than KcRiicth Rayiior uttered, when he said, in substance, 
that the greatest good that could happen to this country 
would be the complete overthrow of slave-driving demoo 
racy, alias the nigger party, which has for its head and 
front the Ritchies and Wises of Virginia, and for its caudal 
v-tirmination the Butlers and Quatlebums of South Carolina. 

And this, by the way, is a fit occasion to call attention 
to the fact, that slave-driving Democrats have been the 
perpetrators of almost every brutal outrage that ever dis- 
graced our halls of legislation. Of countless instances of 
assault and battery, affrays, and fatal rencounters, that 
have occurred in the court-houses, capitols, and other pub- 
lic buildings in the Southern States, we feel safe in say- 
ijig that the aggressor, in at least nine cases out of ten, 
has been a negro-nursed adherent of modern, miscalled 
democracy. So, too, the challenger to almost every duel 
has been an abandoned wretch, who, on many occasions 
during infancy, sucked in the corrupt milk of slavery from 
the breasts of his father's sable concubines, and who has 
never been known to become weary of boasting of a fact 
that invariably impressed itself on the minds of his audi- 
tors or observers, the very first moment they laid their 
eyes upon him, namely, that he was a member of the Dem- 
ocratic party. Brute violence, however, can hardly be 
said to bo the worst characteristic of the slave-driving 
Democrat ; his ignorance and squalidity are proverbial ; 
his senseless enthusiasm is disgusting. 

Peculiarly illustrative of the material of which sham dem- 
ocracy is composed was the vote polled at the Five Points 

precinct, in the city of New- York, on the 4th of November, 

8 



no HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

1856, when James Buchanan was chosen President by a 
miftoritij of the people. We will produce the figures : 

Five Points Precinct, New-York City, 1858. 

Votes cast for James Buchanan 57-1 

" " " John C. Fremont 16 

" " " Millard Fillmore .~ 9 

It will be recollected that Col. Fremonf s majority over 
Buchanan, in the State of New-York, was between seven- 
ty-eight and seventy-nine thousand, and that he ran ahead 
of the Fillmore ticket to the number of nearly one hundred 
and fifty-one thousand. We have not the shadow of a 
doubt that he is perfectly satisfied with Mr. Buchanan's 
triumph at the Five Points, which, with the exception of 
the slave-pens in Sou thorn cities, is, perhaps, the most vile 
and heart-sickening locality in the United States. 

One of the most noticeable and commendable features 

of the last general election is this : almost every State, 

whose inhabitants have enjoyed the advantages of free 

soil, free labor, free speech, free presses, and free schools, 

-<ind who have, in consequence, become great -in numbers, 

in virtue, in v,''ealth, and in wisdom, voted for Fremont, 

the Republican candidate, who was pledged to use his 

nfluence for the extension of like advantages to other 

;>arts of the country. On the other hand, with a single 

iiOTiorable exception, all the States which "have got to 

'.ating everything with the prefix Free, from free negroes 

lown and up through the whole catalogue — free farms. 

Tee labor, free society, free will, free thinking, free chil 

dren, and free schools," and which have exposed their oil 

izens to all the po ils af numerical weakness, absolute ig 



HOW SLAVF.RV CAX HE ABOLISHLD. 171 

norance, and hopeless poverty, voted for Buchanan, the 
I);;nocratic candidate, who, in reply to the overtures of 
his nlave-driving partisans, had signified his willingness 
Id pursue a policy that would perpetuate and disseminate, 
without limit, the multitudinous evils of human bondage 
Led on by a huckstering politician, whose chief voca 
tion, at all times, is the rallying of ragamuffins, shoulder 
strikers, and liquor-house vagabonds, into the ranks of hit 
party, and who, it is well known, receives from the agents 
of tiie slave power, regular installments of money for this 
infamous purpose, a Democratic procession, exceedingly 
motley and unrefined, marched through the streets of one 
of the great cities of the North, little less than a fortniglil 
previous to the election of Mr. Buchanan to the Presi- 
dency ; and the occasion gave rise, on the following day, 
to a communication in one of the morning papers, from 
which we make the following pertinent extract : 

'"' "While the Democratic procession was passing through the 
sireets of this city, a few days since, I could not but think how 
significant the exultation of that ignorant multitude was of the 
ferocious triumphs which would be displayed if ever false Dem- 
ocracy should succeed in throwing the whole power of the coun- 
try into the hands of the Slave Oligarchy. It is melancholy to 
think that every individual in that multitude, ignorant and de- 
praved though he may be, foreign perhaps in his birth, and utterly 
unacquainted with the principles upon which the welfare of the 
country depends, and hostile it may be to those principles, if he 
does understand them, is equal in the power which he may exer- 
cise by his vote to the most intelligent and upriglit man in the 
community. 

" Of this, indeed, it is useless to complain. We enjoy our 
freedom with th> contingency of its loss by the acts of a nuuiori- 
cal majority. It behooves all men, therefore, who have a regard 



172 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

to the common good, to look carefully at the influences which 
may pervert the popular mind ; and this, I think, can only be 
done by guarding against the corruption of individual character. 
A man who has nothing but political business to attend to — I 
mean the management of elections — ought to be shunned by all 
honest men. If it were possible, he should have the mark of Cain 
put upon him, that he might be known as a plotter against the 
welfare of his country." 

Tliat less than three per cent, of those who voted for Col. 
Fremont, that only about five per cent, of those who gave 
then: suffrages to Mr. Fillmore, and that more than eighteen 
per cent, of those who supported Mr. Buchanan, were per- 
sons over one and twenty years of age who could not read 
and write, are estimates which we have no doubt are not 
far from the truth, and which, in the absence of reliable 
statistics, we venture to give, hoping, by their publicity, 
to draw closer attention to the fact, that the illiterate for- 
'( eigners of the North, and the unlettered natives of the 
] South, were cordially united in their suicidal adherence to 
\ the Nigger party. With few exceptions, all the intelligent 
non-slaveholders of the South, in concert with the more 
respectable slaveholders, voted for Mr. Fillmore ; certain 
rigidly patriotic persons of the former class, whose hearts 
were so entirely with the gallant Fremont that they refused 
to vote at all — simply because they did not dare to express 
their preference for him — form the exceptions to which we 
allude. 

Though the Whig, Democratic, and Know-Nothing news- 
papers, in all the States, free and slave, denounced Col. 
Fremont as an intolerant Catholic, it is now generally con- 
ceded tiat be was nowhere supported by the peculiai 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE .IBOLdHED. 173* 

friends of Pope Pius IX. The votes polled at the Five 
Points precinct, which is almost exclusively inhabited by 
low Irish Catholics, show how powerfully the Jesuitical 
influ(3nce was brought to bear against him. At that de- 
lectable local ty, as we ha' : already shown, the timid 
Sage of Wheatland receiver five hundred and seventy- four 
votes ; whereas the dauntless Finder of Empire received 
only sixteen. 

True to their instincts for Freedom, the Germans, gene- 
rally, voted the right ticket, and they will do it again, and 
continue to do it. With the intelligent Protestant element 
of the Fatherland on uur side, we can well afford to dis- 
pense with the ignorant Catholic element of the Emerald 
Isle. In the influences which they exert on society, there 
is so little difference between Slavery, Popery, and Negro- 
driving Democracy, that we are not at all surprised to see 
them ffoinj? hand in hand in their diabolical works of inhu- 
nianity and desolation. 

There is, indeed, no lack of evidence to show that the 
Democratic party of to-day is simply and unreservedly a 
sectional Nigger party. On the 15th of December, 1856, 
but a few weeks subsequent to the appearance of a scan- 
dalous message from an infamous governor of South Caro- 
lina, recommending the reopening of the African slave 
trade, Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee — ^honor to his 
name 1 — submitted, in the House of Kepresentatives, the 
following timely resolution : — 

" Resolved, Tliat this House regard all suggestions or proposi- 
tions of every kind, by whomsoever made, for a revival of the 
elave tra le, as shocking to the moral sentiments of the enlightened 



* 74 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

portion of mankind, and that any act on the part of Congress, 
legislating for, conniving at, or legalizing that horrid and inhuman 
traffic, would justly sjibject the United States to the reproach and 
execration of all civilized and Christian people throughout the 
world." 

Who voted for this resolution ? and who voted against 
it ? Let the yeas and nays answer ; they are on record, 
and he who takes the trouble to examine them will find 
that the resolution encountered no opposition worth men- 
tioning-, except from members of the Democratic party. 
Scrutinize the yeas and nays on any other motion or reso- 
lution affecting the question of slavery, and the fact that 
a majority of the members of this party have uniformly 
voted for the retention and extension of the " sum of all 
villanies," will at once be apparent. 

For many years the slave-driving Democrats of the South 
have labored most strenuously, both by day and by night 
— ^we regret to say how unsuccessfully — to point out abo- 
lition proclivities in the Whig and Know-Nothing parties, 
the latter of which is now buried, and deservedly, so deep 
in the depths of the dead, that it is quite preposterous to 
suppose it will ever see the light of resurrection. 

For its tnickling concessions to the slave power, the. 
Wliig party merited defeat, and defeated it was, and that, 
too, in the most decisive and overwhelming manner. But 
there is yet in this party much vitality, and if its friends 
will reorganize, detach themselves from the burden of 
slavery, espouse the cause of the white man, and hoist the 
fair flag of freedom, the time may come, at a day by no 
means remote, when their hearts will exult in triumph 
over the ruins of miscalled Democracy. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 175 

It IB not too late, however, for the Democratic party to 
secure to its(;lf a pure renown and an almost ceitaiu per- 
petuation of its power. Let it at once- discard the worship 
of slavery, and do earnest battle for the principles of free- 
dom, and it will live victoriously to a period far in tlie 
future. On the other hand, if it docs not soon repudiate 
the fatal heresies which it has incorporated into its creed, 
its doom will be inevitable. Until the black flag entii'ely 
disappears from its array, we warn the non-slaveholders 
of the South to repulse and keep it at a distance, as they 
would the emblazoned skull and cross-bones that flout 
them from the flag of the pirate. 

With regard to the sophistical reasoning vv^hich teacher 

that abolitionists, before abolishing slavery, should com 

pensate the slaveholders for all or any number of the nc 

groes in their possession, we have, perhaps, said quit 

enough ; but wishing to brace our arguments, in every in 

portant particular, with unequivocal testimony from me: 

whom we are accustomed to regard as models of politica 

sagacity and integrity — from Southern men as far as pos 

sible — -w^e herewith present an extract from a speech de 

livered in the Virginia House of Delegates, January 2C, 

1832, by Charles James Faulkner, whose sentiments, as 

then and there expressed, can hardly fail to find a n 

eponse in the heart of every intelligent, upright man : — 

•• But, Sir, it is said that society havino; conferred this propert 
on the slaveholder, it cannot now take it from him without a 
arJequat'j compensation, by which is meant full value. I may b 
singular in the opinion, but I defy the legnl research of the IIous- 
to point, me to a principle recognized by the aw, even in the oi- 
d/uary course of its adjudicat'ons. where the comnfunity pay . 



176 now SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

for iToperty which is removed or destroyed because t is a nui- 
sance, and found injurious to that society. Tlicre i.s, I liumbly 
apprehend, no such principle. There is no obhgation upon 
society to continue your right one moment after it becomes in- 
jurious to the best interests of society ; nor to compensate you 
for the loss of that, the deprivation of which is demanded by 
tlie safety of the State, and in which general benefit you partici- 
pate as members of the community. Sir, there is to my mind a 
manifest distinction between condemning private property to be 
applied to some beneficial public purpose, and condemning or re- 
moving private property which is ascertained to be a positive 
wrong to society. It is a distinction which pervades the whole 
genius of the law ; and is founded upon the idea, tiiat any man 
who holds property injurious to the peace of that societ}^ of 
which he is a member, thereby violates the condition upoa the 
observance of which his right to the property is alone guaran- 
tied. P'or property of the first class condemned, there ought to 
be compensation ; but for property of the latter class, none can 
be demanded upon principle, none accorded as niatter of right. 

•'It is conceded that, at this precise moment of our legiclation, 
slaves are ijijurious to the interests and threaten the subversion 
and ruin of this Commonwealth. Their present number, their 
increasing number, all admonish us of this. In difft'ivnt terms 
and in more measured language, the same fact has been conceded 
by all who have yet addressed this House. ^ Someiuhij must be 
done.'' emphatically exclaimed the gentleman from Dinwiddie ; 
and I thought I could perceive a response to that declaration, in 
the countenance of a large majority of ehis body. And why must 
something be done ? Because if not, saj'S the gentleman from 
Campbell, the throats of all the white people of Virginia will be 
cut. No, sa3's the gentleman from Dinwiddie — ' The whites can- 
not be conquered — the throats of the blackd will be cut.' It is a 
trifling difference, to be sure, Sir, and matters not to the argu- 
ment. For the fact is conceded, that one race or the other must 
be exterminated. 

'• Sir, such being the actual condition of this Commonwealth, 
I ask if W3 would not be justified now, supposing all considera- 
tions of policy and humanity concurred without even a moment's 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. ITT 

dehj, in staving off this appalling and overwhelming calamity'? 
Sir, if this immense negro population were now in arms, gather- 
ing into black and formidable masses of attack, would that man 
be listened to, who spoke about property, who prayed you not 
to direct your artillery to such or such a point, for you would do 
stroy some of his property? Sir, to the eye of the Statesman 
as to the eye of Omniscience, dangers pressing, and dangers that 
must necessarily press, are alike present. With a single glanco 
he embraces Virginia now, with the elements of destruction re- 
posing quietly upon her bosom, and Virginia is lighted from one 
extremity to the other with the torch of servile insurrection and 
massacre. It is not sufficient for him that the match is not yet 
a,pplied. It is enough that the magazine is open, and the match 
will shortly be applied. 

''Sir, it is true in national as it is in private contracts, that loss 
and injur}' to one party may constitute as fair a consideration as 
gain to the other. Does the slaveholder, while he is enjoying 
his slaves, reflect upon the deep injury and incalculable loss 
which the possession of that property inflicts upon the true in- 
terests of the country ? Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil — it is 
an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of 
the State. It banishes free white labor, it exterminates the me- 
chanic, the artisan, the manufacturer. It deprives them of occu- 
pation. It deprives them of bread. It converts the energy of a 
community into indolence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency 
into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, have we not a right to 
demand its extermination ? shall society sufler, that the slave- 
holder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh ? "What 
is his mere pecuniary claim, compared with the great interests of 
the common weal ? Must the country languish, droop, die, that 
the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all interests be subservient 
to one — all rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder ? Has 
not the mechanic, have not the middle classes their rights — rights 
incompatible with the existence of slavery ? 

'' Sir, so great and overshadowing are the evils of slavery — so 
sensibl}'' arc lliey felt by those who have traced the causes of our 
national decline — so perceptible is the poisonous operation of its 
principles in the varied and diversified interests of this Common- 

8* 



178 * HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISIIEI . 

wealth, iliat aU, whose minds are not warped bj prejudice or in- 
tcrest, must admit that the disease has now assumed that mortal 
tendencj', a? to justify the appUcation of any remedy which, un- 
der the great law of State necessity, we might consider advisa- 
ble." 

From the abstract of our plan for the abolition of sla- 
ver^^, it will be perceived that, so far from allowing slave- 
holders any compensation for their slaves, we are, and 
we think justly, in favor of imposing on them a tax of 
sixty dollars for each and every negro now in their pos- 
session, as also for each and every one that shall be born 
X) them between now and the 4:th of July, 18G3 ; after 
which time, we propose that tliey shall be taxed forty dol- 
ars per annum, annually, for every person by them held 
in slavery, without regard to age, sex, color, or condition 
— the money, in both instances, to be used for the sole 
advantage of flie slaves. As an addendum to this propo- 
siti jn, we would say that, in our opinion, if slavery is not 
tot illy abolishe^d by the year 18G9, the annual tax ought 
to be increased from forty to one hundred dollars ; and 
fuiihermore, that if the institution does not then almost 
immediately disappear under the onus of this increased 
taxation, the tax ought in the course of one or two years 
thereafter, to be augmented to such a degree as will, in 
harmony with other measures, prove an infallible death- 
blow to slavery on or before the 4th of July, 1876. 

At once let the good and true men of this country, the 
patriot sons of the patriot fathers, determine that the sun 
which rises to celebrate the centennial anniversary of oui 
national independence, shall not set on the head of any 
clave within tjio limits of our Republic. Will not the 



now SLAVERY CAN BR ABOLISHED. *n9 

r.oi.-slavoholdcrs of the North, of the South, of I he East, 
and ci" the West, heartily, unanimously sanction this pro- 
l^osition ? Will it not be cheerfully indorsed by many of 
the slaveholders themselves? Will any respedalle man 
enter a pi-otest ag'aiust it? On the 4th of July, 18tG — 
eooner, if we can — lot us make good, at least so far as we 
are concerned, the Declaration of Independence, which 
was proclaimed in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 1776 
• — that " all men are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalieiiabl(^ rights ; that among these, are life, liberty, 
anU t!ie [)ursu;t oi' happiness ; that to secure these rights, 
goveniiiienls are instituted among men, deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the governed ; that 
v/Iienever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its 
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers 
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
their safety and happiness." In purging our land of the 
iniquity of negro slavery, we will only be carrying on the 
great work that was so successfully commenced by our 
noble sires of the Revolution ; some future generation 
may possibly complete the work by annulling the last and 
least form of oppression. 

To turn the slaves away from their present homes — 
away from all the property and means of support which 
their labor has mainly produced, would be unpardonable 
cruel — exceedingly unjust. Still n;ore cruel and unjus 
would it be, ho vever, to the non-slaveholding whites uc 
less than to the negroes, to grant further toleration to tht 



180 * HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 

existence of slavery. In any event, come what will, 
transpire wLat may, the institution must be abolished. 
The evils, if any, which are to result from its abolition, 
cannot, by any manner of means, be half as g-reat as the 
evils which are certain to overtake us in case of its con 
tinuance. The perpetuation of slavery is the climax of 
iniquity. 

Two hundrvBd and thirty-seven years have the negroes 
in America been held in inhuman bondage. During the 
whole of this long period they have toiled unceasingly 
from the gray of dawn till the dusk of eve, for their 
cruel task-masters, who have rewarded them with scanty 
allowances of the most inferior qualities of victuals and 

* clothes, with heartless separations of the tenderest ties of 
kindred, with epithets, with scoldings, with execrations, 
and with the lash — and, not unfrequently, with the fata) 
bludgeon or the more deadly weapon. From the labor of 
their hands, and from the fruit of their loins, the human- 
mongers of the South have become wealthy, insolent, cor- 
rupt, and tyrannical. In reason and in conscience the 
slaves might claim from their masters a much larger sum 
than we have proposed to allow them. If they were to 
demand an equal share of all the property, real and i3er- 
sonal, which has been accumulated or produced through 
their efforts. Heaven, we believe, would recognize them as 
honest claimants. 

Elsewhere we have shown, by just and liberal estimates, 
that, on the single score of damages to lands, the slave- 

► holders are, at this moment, indebted to the non-slavehold- 
ing whites in'^ t/io extraordinary sum of ^1,544,148,825 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 181 

Considered in connection with the righteous chiim of wages 
for services which the negroes might bring against their 
masters, these figures are the heralds of the significant fact 
that, if strict justice could be meted out to all parties in 
the South, the slaveholders would not only be stripped uf 
every dollar, but they would become in law as they are iu 
rcah'ty, the hopeless debtors of the myriads of unfortunate 
slaves, white and black, who are now cringing, and fawn- 
ing, and festering around them. In this matter, however, 
so far has wrong triumphed over right, that the slavehold- 
ers — a mere handful of tyrants, whose manual exercises 
are wholly comprised in the use they make of instruments 
of torture, such as whips, clubs, bowie-knives and pistols 
— have, as the result of a series of acts of their own vil 
lainous legislation, become the sole and niggardly propri 
etors of almost every important item of Southern wealth ; 
not only do they own all the slaves — none of whom any 
really respectable person cares to own — but they are also 
in possession of the more valuable tracts of land and the 
appurtenances thereto belonging ; while the non-slavehold- 
ing whites and the negroes, who compose at least nine- 
tenths of the entire population, and who are the actual 
producers of every article of merchandize, animal, vegeta- 
ble, and mineral, that is sold from the South, are most 
wickedly despoiled of the fruits of tlieir labors, and cast 
into the dismal abodes of extreme ignorance, destitution 
and misery. 

For the services of the blacks from the 20th of August, 

1620, up to the 4th of July, 1863 — an interval of precisely 

"vo hund ed and forty -two years ten months and fourtt-eii 



182 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

days — their masters, if unwilling, ought, in our judgment, 
to be compelled to grant them their freedom, and to pay 
each and every i ne of them at least sixty dollars cash in 
hand. The aggregate sum thus raised would amount to 
about two hundred and forty-five millions of dollars, v.'hk-li 
is less than the total market value of two entire ciops of 
cotton — one-half of which sum would be am.ply sufficient 
to land every negro in this country on the coast of Liberia, 
whither, if we had the power, we would ship them all 
within the next six months. As a means of protection 
against the exigencies which might arise from a sudden 
transition from their present homes in America to their^ 
future homes in Africa, and for the purpose of enablin; 
tjiem there to take the initiatory step in the walks of civ- 
ilized life, the remainder of the sum — say about one hun- 
dred and twenty-two millions of dollars — might, very 
properly, be equally distributed amongst them after their 
arrival in the land of their fathers. 

Dr. James Hall, the Secretary of the Maryland Coloniza- 
tion Society, informs us that the average cost of sending 
negroes to Liberia does not exceed thirty dollars each ; 
and it is his opinion that arrangements might be made on 
an extensive plan for conveying them thither at an averag 
expense of not more than twenty-five dollars each. 

The American colonization movement, as now systema 
tized and conducted, is simply an American humane farce 
At present the slaves are increasing in this country at the 
rate of nearly one hundred thousand per annum ; within 
the last ten years, as will appear below, the American 
Colonization. Society has sent to Liberia less than five 
thousand negroes 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



183 



Em grants sent to Liberia by the American Colouization 
Bociety, during the ten years ending January 1st, 1857. 



Ill 1847 39 

In 1848 213 

In 1849 474 

In 1850 590 

In 1851 279 

In 1852 568 

In 1853 583 

In 1854 783 

In 1855 207 

In 1856 544 

Total 4280 



1 



, Emigrants. 



The average of this total is precisely four hundred and 
cwenty-eight, which may bo said to be the number of ne- 
groes annually colonized by the society ; while the yearly 
increase of slaves, as previously stated, is little less than 
one hundred thousand ! Fiddlesticks for such coloniza- 

/ tion ! Once for all, within a reasonably short period, let 
us make the slaveholders do something like justice to 
their negroes by giving each and every one of them his ,/ 

^*»- — freedom, and sixty dollars in current money ; then let us 
charter all the ocean steamers, packets and clipper ships 
that can be had on liberal terms, and keep them con- 
stantly plying between the ports of America and Africa, 
until all slaves shall enjoy freedom in the land of their 
fathers. Under a well-devised and properly conducted 
system of operations, but a few years would be required 
to redeem the United States frcm the monstrous curse of 
iiogro slavery. 



184 B m SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Some few years ago, when certain ethnographical oil 
garchs proved to their ov/n satisfaction that the negro waa 
an inferior " type of mankind," they chuckled wondcr- 
full}', and avowed, in substance, that it was right for the 
stronger race to kidnap and enslave the weaker — that be- 
cause Nature had been pleased to do a trifle more for the 
Caucasian race than for the African, the former, by virtue 
of its superiority, was perfectly justifiable in holding the 
latter in absolute and perpetual bondage I No system of 
logic could be more antagonistic to the spirit of true 
democracy. It is probable that the world does not con- 
tain two persons who are exactly alike in all respects ; 
yet " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienahle rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." All mankind may or may not be 
the descendants of Adam and Eve. In our own humble 
way of thinking, w^e are frank to confess, we do not be- 
lieve in the unity of the races. This is a matter, however, 
which has little or nothing to do with the great question 
at issue. Aside from any theory concerning the original 
parentage of the different races of men, facts, material 
and immaterial, palpable and impalpable — facts of the 
eyes and facts of the conscience — crowd around us on 
every hand, heaping proof upon proof, that slavery is a 
shame, a crime, and a curse — a great moral, social, civil, 
and political evil — an oppressive burden to the blacks, 
and an incalculable injury to the whites — a stumbling- 
block to the nation, an impediment to progress, a damper 
on all the nobler instincts, principles, aspirations and en- 
terprises of man, and a dire enemy to every true interest. 



now SLAVERY CAN Br- iBOIJSHEI). 18n 

Waiving all other counts, wc have, we think, shown 
to the satibfiiction of every impartial reader, that, as else- 
where stated, on the single score of damages to lands, the 
plaveholJers are, at this moment, indebted to lis, the non- 
shivelioldii g whites, in the enormous sum of nearly sevfiv 
ty-six hunilred millions of dollars. What shall be done 
with this amount ? It is just ; shall payment be de- 
manded ? No ; all the slaveholders in the country could 
not pay it ; nor shall we ever ask them for even a moiety 
of the amount — no, not even for a dime, nor yet for a 
cent ; we are willing to forfeit every farthing for the sake 
of freedom ; for ourselves we ask no indemnification for 
the past : we only demand justice for the future. 

But, Sirs, knights of bludgeons, chevaliers of bowic- 
linives and pistols, and lords of the lash, we are unwill- 
ing to allow you to swindle the slaves out of all the rights 
and claims to w^hich, as human beings, they are most 
sacredly entitled. Not alone for ourself as an individual, 
but for others also — particularly for five or six millions 
of Southern non-slaveholding whites, whom your iniqui- 
tous statism has debarred from almost all the mental and 
material comforts of life — do we speak, when we say, you 
must emancipate your slaves, a'ld pay each and every one 
of tliem at least sixty dollars cash in hand. By doing this, 
you will be restoring to them their natural rights, and 
remunerating them at the rate of less than twenty-six 
cents per annum for the long and cheerless period of their 
servitude, from the 20th of August, 1020, when, on James 
River, in Virginia, they became the unhappy slaves of 
heartless n asters. Moreover, by doing this you will be 



186 HOVr SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

performing but a simple act of justice to the non-slave 
holding whites, upon whom the institution of slavery haa 
weighed scarcely less heavily than upon the negroes 
themselves. You will also be applying a saving balm to 
your owm outraged hearts and consciences, and your chil- 
dren-— yourselves in fact — freed from the accursed stain 
of slavery, will become respectable, useful, and honorable 
members of society. 

And now. Sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. 
What are you going to do about it ? Something dread- 
ful, as a matter of course I Perhaps you will dissolve 
the Union again. Do it, if you dare I Our motto, and we 
would have you to understand it, is the abolition of slavery, 
and the perjpetuation of the Ajnerican Union. If, by any means, 
you do succeed in your treasonable attempts to take the 
South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her back to- 
morrow — if she goes away with you, she will return with- 
out you. 

Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause (jf the 
last sentence ; we could elucidate it so thoroughly that no 
intelligent person could fail to comprehend it ; but, for 
reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the task. 

Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in 
the South, aside from the interests of negroes and slave- 
holders. A profound sense of duty incites us to make the 
greatest possible efforts for the abolition of slavery ; an 
equally profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of 
those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have 
been utterly vanquished. To the summons of the righte- 
ous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful ; 



HOW SLAVER\ CAN ?E ABOLISHED. 187 

no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side 
of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved. 
Thus, terror-engenaercrs of the South, have we fully and 
frankly defined our position ; we have no modifications 
to propose, no compromises to offer, nothing to retract 
Frown, Sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, 
strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, 
nay annihilate the solar system if you will — do all this, 
more, less, better, worse, anything — do what you will, 
Sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us ; our purpose i? 
as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of Heaven ; we have 
determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God, abo- 
lish it we will ! Take this to bed with you to-night. Sirs, 
and think about it, dream over it, and let us know how 
vou fe« 1 ton orrow morning 



.^]^ 



CHAPTER III. 

SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY, 

If it please the reader, let him forget all that we hay ) 
written on the subject of slavery ; if it accord with his 
inclination, let him ignore all that we may write hereaf- 
ter. We seek not to give currency to our peculiar opin- 
ions ; our greatest ambition, in these pages, is to popular 
ize the sayings and admonitions of wiser and better men. 
Miracles, we believe, arc no longer wrought in this bedev- 
iled world ; but if, by any conceivable or possible super- 
natural event, the great Founders of the Republic, Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, could be reinvested 
with corporeal life, and returned to the South, there is 
scarcely a slaveholder between the Potomac and the 
mouth of the Mississippi, that would not burn to pounce 
upon them with bludgeons, bowie-knives and pistols ! 
Yes, without adding another word, Washington would bo 
moiled for what he has already said. Were Jefferson now 
employed as a professor in a Southern college, he would 
be dismissed and driven from the State, perhaps murdered 
before he reached the border. If Patrick Henry were a 
bookseller in Alabama, though it might be demonstrated 
beyDnd the shadow of a d^ubt that he had never bought, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 189 

sold, received, or presented, any kind of literature except 
Bibles and Testaments, he would first be subjected to the 
ignominy of a coat of tar and feathers, and then limited 
to the option of unceremonious expatriation or death. 
Uow seemingly impossible are these statements, and yet 
how true I Where do we stand ? What is our faith ? 
Are we a flock without a shepherd ? a people without a 
prophet? a nation without a g-ovornmcnt? 

Has tlio past, with all its glittering monuments of 
genius and patriotism, furnished no beacon by which we 
may direct our footsteps in the future ? If we but prove 
true to ourselves, and worthy of our ancestry, we have 
nothing to fear ; our Revolutionary sires have devised and 
bequeathed to us an almost perfect national policy. Let 
us cherish, and defend, and build upon, the fundamental 
principles of that polity, and we shall most assitredly 
reap the golden fruits of unparalleled power, virtue and 
prosperity. Heaven forbid that a desperate faction of 
slaveholding criminals should succeed in their infamous 
endeavors to quench the spirit of liberty, which our fore- 
fathers infused into those two sacred charts of our politi- 
cal faith, the Declaration of Independence, and the Consti- 
tution of the United States, Oligarchal politicians are 
alone responsible for the continuance of African slavery in 
the South. For purposes of self-aggrandizement, they 
have kept learning and civilization from the people ; they 
have wilfully misinterpreted the national compacts, and 
have outraged their own consciences by declaring to their 
illiterate constituents, that the Founders of the Republic 
were no4 abolitioi ists. When the dark clouds of slavery, 



190 SOUTHERxV TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 

error and ignorance shall have passed away, — and we be- 
lieve the time is near at hand when they are to be dissi 
pated, — the freemen of the South, like those of other seo 
tions, will learn the glorious truth, that inflexible opposi- 
tion to Human Bondage has formed one of the distin 
guishiug characteristics of every really good or great 
man that our country has produced. 

The principles, aims and objects that actuated the 
fram>crs of the Constitution, are most graphicallly and 
eloquently set forth, in the following extract from a 
speech recently delivered by the Hon. A. H. Cragin, of 
New Hampshire, in the House of Representatives : 

•' Wlien our forefathers reared the magnificent structure of a 
free Republic in this Western land, they laid its foundations 
broad and deep in the eternal principles of right. Its niateriala 
were all quarried from the mountain of truth ; and, as it rose 
majestically before an astonished world, it rejoiced the hearts and 
hopes of mankind. Tyrants only cursed the worknien and their 
workmanship. Its architecture was new. It had no model in 
Grecian or Iioman history. It seemed a paragon, let down from 
Heaven to inspire the hopes of men, and to demonstrate the favor 
of God to the people of a new world. The builders recognized 
the rights of human nature as universal. Liberty, the great first 
right of n:!an. they claimed for 'all men,' and claimed it fr«m 
' God himself.' Upon this foundation they erected the temple, 
and dedicated it to Liberty, Humanity, Justice, and Equality. 
Washington was crowned its patron saint." 

•• The work completed was the noblest effort of human wisdom. 
!>nt it was not perfect. It had one blemish — a little spot — the 
black stain of slavery. The workmen — the friends of freedom 
everywhere — deplored this. They labored long and prayerfully 
to remove this deformity. Ihey applied all the skill of their 
art ; but they labored in vain. . Self-interest was too strong for 
patnotism ant love of libert} . The work stood still, and for & 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. li)| 

time it was doubtful wlicthcr the experiment would succeed. Tho 
hl<jt must remain, or the whole must Tail. The workaien revar- 
iiishe.l their work, to conceal and cover up the stain. Slavery 
was recognized, but not sanctioned. The word slave or slavery 
must not mar the Constitution. So great an inconsistency must 
rot be proclaimed to the world." 

" All agreed, at that time, that the anomaly should not increase, 
and all concurred in the hope and belief that the blemish would 
gradually disappear. Those noble men looked forward to the 
time when slavery would be abolished in this land of ours. They 
belipved that the principles of liberty were so dear to the people, 
that they would not long deny to others what they claimed for 
themselves. They never dreamed that slavery would be extended, 
but firmly believed it would be wholly blotted out. I challenge 
any man to show me a single patrioi of the Revolution who was m 
favor of slaver}}^ or who advocated its extension. So universal 
was the sentiment of lib. rty then, that no man, North or South, 
could be found to justify it. Some palliated the evil, and desired 
that it might be gradually extinguished j but none contemplated 
it as a permanent institution." 

" Liberty was then the national goddess, worshiped by all the 
people. They sang of liberty, they harangued for liberty, they 
prayed for liberty, and they sacrificed for liberty Slavery was 
then hateful. It was denounced by all. The British king, was 
condemned for foisting it upon the Colonies. Southern men were 
foremost in entering their protest against it. It was then every- 
where regarded as an evil, and a crime against humanity.'" 

The fact is too palpable to be disguised, that slavery 
and slaveholders have always been a clog and a dead- weight 
upon the government — a disgrace and a curse to humanity. 
The slaveholding Tories of the South, particularly of South 
Carolina, in their atrocious hostility to freedom, prolonged 
the arduous war of the Revolution from two to three years ; 
and since the termination of that momentous struggle, in 
which, thank Heaven, they were most signally defeated, 



192 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

it has beeii their constant aim and effort to subvert the 
dear-bouglit liberties which were achieved by the non- 
si aveholding patriots. 

Non-slaveholders of the South ! up to the present period, 
neither as a body, nor as individuals, have you ever had 
an independent existence ; but, if true to yourselves and 
to the memory of your fathers, you, in equal copartnership 
with the non-slaveholders of the North, will soon become 
the honored rulers and proprietors of the most powerful, 
prosperous, virtuous, free, and peaceful nation, on which 
the sun has ever shone. Already has the time arrived for 
you to decide upon what basis you will erect your political 
superstructure. Upon whom will you depend for an equi- 
table and judicious form of constitutional government? 
Whom will you designate as models for your luture states- 
men ? Your choice lies between the dead and the living — 
between the Washingtons, the Jeffersons and the Madisons 
of the past, and the Quattlebums, the Quitmans and the 
Butlers of the present. We have chc^en ; choose ye, 
remembering that freedom or slavery is to be the issue of 
your option. 

As the result of much reading and research, and at the 
expenditure of no inconsiderable amount of time, labor and 
money, we now proceed to make known the anti-slavery 
sentiments of those noble abolitionists, the Fathers of the 
Republic, whose liberal measures of public policy have 
been so criminally perverted by the treacherous advocates 
of slavery 

Let us listen, in the first place, to the voice of him who 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 193 

was " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
his countrymen," to 

THE VOICE OF WASHINGTON. 

In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9tb, 
1786, General Washington says : — 

" I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should 
compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being 
among my first u-ishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery, 
in this country, may be abolished by law." 

In a letter to Robert Morris, dated Mount Vernon, April 
12, 1786, he says :— 

" I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more 
sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. 
But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can 
be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority ; and this, 
as far as my suffrage will go^ shall never be wanting." 

He sa^^s, in a letter 

^' To the Marquis de Lafaykttf. — April 5th, 1783: — 
The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose as a prece- 
dent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people in this 
country from the state of bondage in which they are held, is a 
etriking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be 
happy to join you in so laudable a work ; but will defer going 
iiito a detail of the business till I have the pleasure of seeing you." 



In another letter to Lafayette, he says :- 



'• The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so con 
spicuous on all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proofs 
of it ; but your late purchase of an estate in the Colony of Cay- 
enne, with the view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous 

9 



194 SOUTHEK.N TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit 
might diff ise itself generally into the minds of the people of tbi^ 
country." 

In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he further said : — 

" There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of 
slavery, which neither Virginia nor Maryland have at present, but 
which nothing is more certain than they must have, and at a 
period not rernote." 

From his last will and testament we make the following 
extract : 

"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all 
he slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their free- 
om. To emancipate them during her life would, though earn- 
stly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficultie&, 
)n account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower ne- 
,roes, as to excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable 
;onsequences, from the latter, while both descriptions are in the 
>ccupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power, un- 
ier the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manumit 
hem." 

It is said that, " when Mrs. Washington loarned, from 
:he will of her deceased husband, that the only obstacle to 
the immediate perfection of this provision was her right 
>f dower, she at once gave it np, and the slaves were 
inade free." A man might possibly concentrate within 
himself more real virtue and- influence than ever Wash- 
ington possessed, and yet he would not be too good for 
such a wife. 

From the Father of bis Country, we now turn to the au- 
thor of the Oeclarati m of Independence. We will listen to 



SOUTHERN TEST MONY AGAINST SL IVERY. 1^5 

THE VOICE OF JEFFERSON. 

Oil the 39tli and 40th pages of his Notes oi Virginia, 
Jefferson says : — 

" There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the mari- 
ners of our people, produced by the existence of slavery among 
us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpet- 
ual exercise of the most boisterous passions — tho most unremit- 
ting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on 
the other. Our children see this, and learn to imi+,atc it ; for 
man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all edu- 
cation in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to 
do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, 
either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the in- 
temperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a 
sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is no< 
sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catclies th» 
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of sinalle' 
slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions ; a!id. thu" 
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but b« 
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man nmst be '> 
prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved bj' 
such circumstances. And with what execration should th' 
Statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thu- 
to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into des 
pots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one pari 
and the amor patriae of the other ; for if a slave can have »• 
countr}' in this Avorld. it must be any other in preference to tha* 
in which he is born to live and labor for another; in wliich ht 
must look up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as de 
pends on his individual endeavors, to the evanishment of the hu 
man race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endles." 
generations proceeding from him. "With the morals of the peo 
pie, their industry also is destroyed 3 for, in a warm climate, nc 
man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. 
This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small pro- 
portion, indeed,*are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties 



196 SOrTOEKX TE. riMOXY AGAH^ST SLAVLR" 

of a nation be thought secure, when we have remov d their only 
firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that theso 
libertits are of the iritt of God ? that they are not to be violated 
but with Lis wi-ath ? Indeed, I tremble for my country when 1 
reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; 
that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revo- 
lution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among 
possible events ; that it may become probable by supernatural 
interference ! The Almighty has no attribute which can take 
side with us in such a contest." 

While Virginia was yet a Colony, in IT 74, she held a 
Convention to appoint delegates to attend the first general 
Congress, which was to assemble, and did assemble, in 
Philadelphia, in September of the same year. Before that 
Convention, Mr. Jefferson made an exposition of the rights 
of British America, in which he said : — 

'' Tlie abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of 
desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in 
their infant State. But previous to the enfranchisement of the 
slaves, it is necessary to exclude further importations from Africa. 
Yet our repeated attempts to efiect this by prohibitions, and by 
imposing duties which might amount to prohibition, have been 
hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative ; thus preferring the 
immediate advantage of a few African corsairs to the lasting in- 
terests of the American States, and the rights of human nature, 
deeply wounded by this infamous practice." 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, 
of which it is well known he was the author, we find this 
charge against the King of Great Britain : — 

'• He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating 
its most sacred riglits of life and liberty, in the persons of a dis- 
tant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying 
them into slavery in another hemisphere, or- to incur miserable 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGATXs.r SLAVFRV. 191 

death in tlieir transportation thith(;r. This piratical \v;ufare, the 
opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian 
King of Great Britain. Determined to keep a market where men 
should be bought and sold, he has at length prostituted his nega 
tive for suppressing any legislative attempt tc prohibit and ra 
strain this execrable commerce." 

Hear him further ; he says : — / 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre- 
ated equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments 
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from tho 
consent of the governed." 

Under date of August 7th, 1185, in a letter to Dr. Prico 
of London, he says : — 

" Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there 
an opponent of your doctrine, as you may find, here and there, a 
robber and murderer ; but in no great number. Emancipation 
is put into such a train, th;\t in a few years there will be no 
slaves northward of iMaryland. In Maryland I do not find such 
a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity, as in Virginia. 
This is the next State to which we may turn our e^'es for the 
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and op- 
pression ; a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily 
recruits from the influx into ofBce of young men grown up, and 
growing up. These have sucked in the principles of liberty, as 
it were, with their mother's milk ; and it is to tb^m I look with 
anxiety to turn the fate of the question." 

In another letter, written to a friend in 1814, he made 
use of the following emphatic language : — 

" Your favor of July 3''st was duly received, and read with pe- 
culiar pleasure. Tlie sentiments do honor to the head and hear! 



198 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

of the writer. Mine on the subject of the slaverj' of negroes 
have long since been in the possession of the public, and time has 
onlj served to give them stronger root. The love of justice aad 
the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and 
it is a reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in 
vain." 

Again, he says : — 

" What an incomprehensible machine is man ! who can endaro 
toil, lamine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication 
of his own liberty ; and the next moment be deaf to all those 
motives whose power supported him through his trial, and in- 
flict on his fellow man a bondage, one hour of which is fraught 
with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to 
oppose." 

Throughout the South, at the present day, especially 
among slaveholders, negroes are almost invariably spoken 
of as " goods and chattels," " property," " human cattle." 
In our first quotation from Jefferson's works, we have 
seen tfiat he spoke of the blacks as citizens. We shall 
now hear Inm speak of them as brethren. He says : — 

" We must wait with patience the workings of an overruling 
Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of 
these our brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be 
full, when their groans shall have involved Heaven itself in dark- 
ness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress. 
Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Fate, than that 
this people shall he free." 

In a letter to James Heaton, on this same subject 
dated May 20, 1826, only six weeks before his death, he 
%ays : — 

'' My sentiments have bejn forty years before the public. Had 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 190 

I 1-epeatcd them fort}^ times, they would have only become the 
more stale and threadbare. Although I shall not live to see them 
co.nsummated, they will not die with me." 

From the Father of the Declaration of Independence, we 
row turn to the Father of the Constitution. We will 
listen to 

THE VOICE OF MADISON. 

Advocating the abolition of the slave-trade, Mr. Madison 
said : — 

"The dictates of humanity, the principles of the people, the 
national safety and happiness, and prudent policy, require it of 
us. It is to be hoped, that by expressing a national disapproba- 
tion of the trade, we may destroy it, and save our country from 
reproaches, and our posterity from the imbecility ever attendant 
on a country filled with slaves." 

Again, he says : — 

"It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that ther 
«an be property in man." 

In the 39th No. of " The Federalist," he says :— 

" The first question that offers itself is, whether the genen 
form and aspect of the government be strictly Republican. It ; 
evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genii 
of the people of America, and with the fundamental principles c 
the Revolution, or with that honorable determination which an 
motes every votary of freedom, to rest all our politicul cxper 
ments on tl:e capacity of mankind for self-government." 

In the Federal Convention, he said — 

"And in the third place, where slavery exists, the Republics 
theory becomes still more fallacious." 



200 SOUTHERN TESXniONY AGAIXST SI.AVERY. 

On another occasion, he says : — 

" We have seen the mere distinction of color made, n the 
most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive 
dominion ever exercised bj man over man." 

THE VOICE OF MONROE. 

In a speech in the Virginia Convention, Mr. Monroe 
Baid : — 

" We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals 
of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States, in which 
it has existed." 

THE VOICE OF HENRY. 

The eloquent Patrick Henry says, in a letter dated Jan- 
uary 18, 1773 :— 

"Is it not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity, 
whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in 
cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a 
practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and 
wrong ? What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable prac- 
tice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times 
that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in 
the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into 
general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and 
tyranny which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest 
ancestors detested. Is it not amazing that at a time when the 
rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in 
a country above all others fond of liberty — that in such an age 
and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most 
mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopting such a principle, as 
repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and 
destructive to liberty ? Every thinking, honest man rejects it in 
speculation. How free in practice from conscientious motives ! 
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 20 V 

purchase ? I am drawn along by tlie genonil inconvenience cf 
living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. How- 
ever culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue 
as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and la- 
ment my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will 
come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lament- 
able evil. Everything we can do is to improve it. if it happens 
in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together 
with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence 
for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation 
to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is 
the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is a debt 
we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at van 
auce with that law which warrants slavery." 

Again, this great orator says : — ■ 

" It would rejoice my very soul, that every one of my feUoK 
oeings was emancipated. We ought to lament and deplore tluj 
necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage. Believe me , 
I shall honor the Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish 
slavery." 

THE VOICE OF RANDOLPH. 

That excentric genius, John Randolph, of Roanoke, in a 
letter to William Gibbons, in 1820, says : — 

•' "With unfeigned respect and regard, and as sincere a depreca- 
tion on the extension of slavery and its horrors, as any other 
man, be him whom he may, I am your friend, in the literal sense 
of that much abused word. I say much abused, becanse it is ap- 
plied to the leagues of vice and avarice and ambition, instead 
of good will toward man from love of him who is the Prince of 
Peace." 

While in Cono^ress, he said : 

" Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from 

the North who rises here ta defend slavery on principle."' 

(J* 



202 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY A(^AIN5T SLAVERY. 

It is well known that lie emancipated all his negroes. 
The following lines from his will are well worth perusing 
and preserving : — 

" I give to ra}^ slaves their freedom, to which my conscience 
tehs rae they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a mat- 
ter of the deepest regret to me that the circamstances under 
which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by 
the lavvs of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in 
my life-time, which it is m}^ full intention to do in case I can 
accomplish it." 

THOMAS M. RANDOLPH. 

In an address to the Virginia Legislature, in 1820, Gor. 
Randolph said : — 

" We have been far outstripped by States to vt^hom nature has 
been far less bountiful. It is painful to consider what might 
have been, under other circumstances, the amount of general 
wealth in Virginia." 

THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 

In 1832, Mr. Randolph, of Albemarle, in the Legislature 
of Virginia, used the following most graphic and emphatic 
language : — 

" I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the State 
for internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to re- 
store confidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense 
of the safety of our wives and our children. Yet, Sir, I must 
ask upon whom is to fall the burden of this defence ? Not upon 
the lordly masters of their hundred slaves, who will never turn 
out except to retire with their families when danger threatens. 
J^o, Sir • it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of our citizens 



SOHTHERN TESTIIIONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 203 

chk^fiy upon the non-slaveholder. I have known patrols turned 
cut when there was not a slaveholder among them ; and this is 
the practice of the country. I have slept in times of alarm quiet 
in bed, without having a thought of care, while these individuals, 
owning none of this property themselves, were patrolling under 
a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents per 
twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that 
proi)erty which was alike dangerous to them and myself. AfR-r 
all, this is but an exj)edient. As this population becomes more 
numerous, it becomes less productive. Your guard must be iii- 
creased, until finally its profits will not pay for the expense of 
its stibjection. Slavery has the effect of lessenijig the free popu- 
lation of a country. 

" The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves 
bci'ig a part of the profit. It is admitted ; but no great evil can 
lai averted, no good attained, wnthout some inconvenience. It 
may be questioned how far it is desirable to foster and encour- 
age this branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing 
practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. Ho.v 
can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his countrv. bear 
to see this Ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble 
devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, con- 
verted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for 
the market, like oxen for the shambles ? Is it better, is it not 
worse, than the slave trade — that trade which enlisted the labor 
of the good and wise of every creed, and every clime, to abolish 
it ? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, 
and manners, from the merchant who has brought him from the 
interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have all 
been rent in twain ; before he receives him, his soul has become 
callous. But here, Sir, individuals whom the master has known 
from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gam- 
bols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for 
protection, he tears from the mother's arms and sells into a 
strange country among strange people, subject to cruel taskmas- 
ters. 

"He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists ir 
Africa, s^nd has stated that it exists all over the world. tJpoi 



204 SOUTHERN TESTDIONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

the same principle, he could justify ^lahometanism, with its plu- 
raUty of wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery, and murder, or 
any other of the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. 
Does slaver}' exist in any part of civilized Europe ? No, Sir, Id 
DO part of it.'' 

PEYTON RANDOLPH. 

On the 20th of October, 1774, while Congress was in 
session in Philadelpliia, Peyton Randolph, President, the 
following resolution, among others, was unanimously 
adopted : — • 

'•That wc will neither import m)r purchase any slave imported 
after the first day of December next ; after which time we will 
wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned 
in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our cemmo- 
dities or n^anufactures, to those who are concerned in it." 

EDMUND RANDOLPH. 

The Constitution of the United States contains the fol- 
lowing provision : — 

'•No person held to service or labor in another State, under th« 
laws thereof, escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
such service or labor may be due." 

To the studious attention of those vandals who contend 
that the above provision requires the rendition of fugitive 
slaves, we respectfully commend the following resolution, 
wliich, it will be observed, was unanimo^usly adopted : — 

"On motion of Mr. Pvandojph. the word servitude' was struck 



SOUTHERN TESTniONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 205 

out, and ' service^ unanimously inserted — the former being 
thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter tho ob 
ligation of/ree persons." — Madison Fa per s, vol. III., p, 1509. 

Well done for the Randolphs I 



THE VOICE OF CLAY. 

Henry Clay, whom everybody loved, and at the mention 
of whose name the American heart always throbs with 
emotions of grateful remembrance, said, in an address be- 
fore the Kentucky Colonization Society, in 1829 : — 

"It is believed that nowhere in the farming' portion of the 
United States would slave-labor be generally employed, if the 
proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price o'' 
the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own." 

In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the follow 
ing memorable words : — 

. " I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi 
say that he requires, first the extension of the Missouri Compro- 
mise line to the Pacific, and also that he is not satisfied with 
that, but requires, if I understand him correctly, a positive pro- 
vision for the admission of slavery South of that line. And now, 
Sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe 
it to truth, I owe it to the subject to say that no cartlily power 
could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduc- 
tion of slavery where it had not before existed, either South or 
North of that line. Coming as T do from a slave State, it is my 
solemn, deliberate and well-matured determination that no 
power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the posi- 
tive introduction of slavery either South or North of that line. 
Sir while you reproach, and justly too. our British ancestors for 
the introduction of this institution upon the continent of Ame- 

ica 1 am. for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present in- 



206 . SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SL4.VERY. 

babitants of Calif jrnia and of New Mexico, sball reproach us for 
doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If 
the citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and 
if the}'' come here with Constitutions establishing slavery, I am 
for admitting them with such provisions in their Constitutions ; 
but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their pos- 
terity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming Con 
etitvV.ons allowing the institution of slavery to exist among 
them. These are my views, Sir, and I choose to express them ; 
^nd I care not how extensively or universaHy they arc known." 

Hear him further ; he says : — 

" So long as God allows the vital current to flow through ray 
veins, I will never, never, never, by word, or thought, by mind 
or will, aid in adruitting one rood of free territory to the ever- 
lasting curse of hunnn bondage/' 

A bumper to the memory of noble Harry of the AVest I 



CAS3IU3 M. CLAY 

Of the great number of good speeches made by members 
of the K.^publlcan party during the late Presidential cam- 
paign , it ia, we believe, pretty generally admitted that the 
l)e':t one was made by Cassius M. Clay, ^f Kentucky, at 
the Tabernacle, in New-York City, on the 24th of October, 
185G. From the speech of that noble champion of freedom, 
then and there de)ivered, we make the following graphic 
extract : — 

" If there are no manufactures, there is no commerce. In vain 
do the slaveholders go to Knoxville, to Nashville, to Memphis 
und to Charleston, and resolve that they will have nothing to do 
with these abolition eighteen millions of Northern people; that 
they will Juild their own vessels, manufacture their own goods 
fillip their own products to foreign countries, and break dowa 



SOriHERN TESTIMONY AGA NST SLAVERY, 20T 

New-York, Philadelphia and Boston! Again they resolve and 
reresolve, and 3'et there is not a single ton more shipped and not 
a single article added to the wealth of the South. Eut, gentle- 
men, they never invite such men as I am to attend their Conven- 
tions. They know that I would tell them that slavery is the cause 
of their poverty, and that I will tell them that what they are aim- 
Tng atTisTTie dissolution of the Union — that they may be prepared 
to strike for that whenever the nation rises. They well know that, 
by slave labor the very propositions which they make can never 
be realized ; yet when we show these things, they cry out, ' Oh, 
Cotton is King !' But when we look at the statistics, we find 
that so far from Cotton being King, Grass is King. There are 
nine articles of staple productions which are larger than that of 
cotton in this country." 

" I suppose it does not follow because slavery is endeavoring 
to modify the great dicta of our fathers, that cotton and free 
labor are incompatible. In the extreme South, at New Orleans-, 
the laboring men— the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, 
where the heat is intensified by the proximity of the red brick 
buildings, are all white men, and they are in the full enjoyment 
of health. But how about cotton ? I am informed by a friend 
of mine — himself a slaveholder, and therefore good authority — 
that in Northwestern Texas, among the German settlements, who. 
true to their national instincts, will not employ the labor of a 
slave — they produce more cotton to the acre, and of a better 
quality, and selling at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a 
pound higher than that produced by slave labor. This is an ex- 
periment that illustrates what I have always held, that whatever 
is right is expedient." 

THE VOICE OF BEXTON. 

In his " Thirty Years' View," Thomas H. Benton says :-— 

"■ My opposition to the extension of slavery dates further back 
than 1844— forty years further back ; and as this is a suitable 
time for a general declaration, and a sort of general conscience 
delivery, I wi 1 say that my opposition to it dates from 1804. wijcn 



208 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLA\EKx. 

I was a student at law in the State of Tennessee, and studied the 
subject of African slavery in an American book — a Virginia book 
— Tucker's edition of Blackstone's Commentaries." 

•Again, in a speech delivered in St. Louis, on the 3rd of 
November, 1856, he says : — 

'' I look at white people, and not at black ones ; I look to the 
peace and reputation of the race to which I belong. I look tc 
the peace of this land — the world's last hope for a free govern- 
ment on the earth. One of the occasions on which I saw Henry 
Clay rise higher than I thought I ever saw himbefore, was when 
in tiie debute on the admission of California, a dissolution was 
apprehended if slavery was not carried into this Territory, where 
It never was. Then ]\Ir. Clay, rising, loomed colossally in the 
Senate of the United States, as he rose declaring that for no 
earthly purpose, no earthly object, could he carry slavery into 
places where it did not exist before. It was a great and proud 
day for ^Ir. Clay, towards the latter days of his life, and if an art- 
ist could have been there to catch his expression as he uttered 
that sentiment, with its reflex on his face, and his countenance 
beaming with firmness of purpose, it would have been a glorious 
moment in which to transmit him to posterity — his countenance 
all alive and luminous with the ideas that beat in his bosom. 
That was a proud day. I could have wished that I had spoken 
the same words. I speak them now, telling you they were his, 
and adopting them as my own." 

THE VOICE OF MASON. 

Colonel Mason, a leading and distinguished member of 
the Convention that formed the Constitution, from Virginia, 
when the provision for prohibiting the mportation of 
slaves was under considcnition, said : — 

•' The present question concerns not the importing States alone, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMOXI -AGAINST SLAVERY. 209 

but tha whole Union. Slavery discourages arts and mnimftictures. 
The poor desjjise labor when performed by slaves. Tliey prevent 
the emigration of whites who really enrich and strengthen a 
country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. 
Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the 
judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be re- 
warded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By 
an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes na- 
tional sins by national calamities. He lamented that some of our 
Eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefa- 
rious traflBc. As to the States being in possession of the right 
to import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be 
properly given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, 
that the General Government should have power to prevent the 
increase of slavery.'^ 

THE VOICE OF MCDOWELL. 

In 1832, Gov. McDowell used this lau^-ua^-e in the Vir- 
ginia Legislature : — 

"Who that looks to this unhappy bondage of an unhappy peo- 
ple, in the midst of our society, and thiidcs of its incidents or is- 
sues, but weeps over it as a curee as great upon him who inflicts 
as upon him who suffers it ? Sir, you may place the slave where 
you please — you may dry up, to your uttermost, the fountains of 
his feelings, the springs of his thought — you may close upon his 
mind every avenue of knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial 
night — you may yoke him to your labors, as the ox, wliich liveth 
only to work and worketh only to live — you ma}' put him under 
any process which, without destrojMng his value as a slave, will 
debase and crush him as a rational being — you may do this, and 
the idea that he was born to be free will survive t all. It is 
allied to his hope of immoitality — it is the etherial part of his 
nature which oppression cannot rend. It is a torch lit up in his 
soul bj' the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished 
bj the hand of man." 



210 SOITIIERN TESTDIOXY AGAINST SLAVERY 

THE VOICE OF IREDELL. 

In the dr'bates of the North Carolina Convention, Mr. 
Iredill, afterwards a Judge of the United States Supreme 
Court, said : — 

•'When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be 
an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind and 
every friend of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF PINKNEY. 

William Pinkney, of Maryland, in the House of Dele- 
gates in that State, in 1789, made several powerful argu- 
ments in favor of the abolition of slavery. Here f )llows 
a brief extract from one of his speeches : — 

'•Iniquitous and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that drear}'' 
system of partial bondage which her laws have hitherto sup- 
ported with a solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citi- 
zens by their practice, countenanced. Founded in a disgraceful 
traffic, to which tlie parent country lent its fostering ait', from 
motives of interest, but which even shy would have dis anied to 
encourage, had England been the destined mart of such inhuman 
merchiindize. its continuance is as shameful as its onQ,in. 

I have no hope that the stream of general liberty will forever 
flow unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage, or that thty 
who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not, in time, 
become base enough to let others lord it over them. If they re- 
sist, it will be the struggle of pride and selfishness, not of princi- 
ple." 

THE VOICE OF LEIGH. 

In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Leigb 
said : — 

^I thought, till very lately that it was known to every body 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAI?f ST SLAVERY. 2 1 1 

that, during the Revohition. and for many years after, the aboli 
tion of slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest 
Statesmen, who entertained with respect all the schemes which 
wisdom or ingenuity could suggest for its accomplishment." 

THE VOICE OF MARSHALL. 

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier, said, in the Virginia 
Legislature, in 1832 : — 

" Wherefore, then, object to slavery ? Because it is ruinous to 
the whites — retards improvements, roots out an industrious popu- 
lation, banishes the yeomanry' of the country — deprives the spin- 
ner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of em- 
ployment and support." 

THE VOICE OF BOLLING. 

Philip A. Boiling, of Buckingham, a member of the Leg- 
islature of Virginia in 1832, said : — 

" The time will come — and it may be sooner than many are 
willing to believe — when this oppressed and degraded race can- 
not be held as they now are — when a change will be effected, 
abhorrent, Mr. Speaker, to you, and to the feelings of every good 
man. 

The wounded adder will recoil, and sting the foot that tram- 
ples upon it. The day is fast approaching, when those who op- 
pose all action upon this subject, and, instead of aiding in devis- 
ing some feasible plan for freeing their country from an acknow- 
ledged curse, cry ' impossible,'' to every plan suggested, will curse 
their perverseness, and lament their folly.'* 

THE VOICE OF CHANDLER. 

Mr. Chandler, of Norfolk, member of the Virginia Legis 
lature, in 1832, took occasion to say: — 

' It is admitted, by all who have addressed this Ilouse, that 



212 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAI ST SLAVERY. 

slavery is a curse, and an increasing one. That it r as been de- 
structive to the lives of our citizens, liistory. with unerring truth, 
will record. That its future increase will create couimotion, can- 
not be doubted." 

THE VOICE OF SUMMERS. 

Mr. Summers, of Kanawha, member of the Legislature 
of Virginia, in 1832, said : — 

"The evils of this system cannot be enumerated. It were un- 
necessary to attempt it. They glare upon us at every step. 
When the owner looks to his wasted estate, he knows and feels 
them." 

THE VOICE OF PRESTON. 

In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Preston 
said : — 

" Sir, Mr. Jefferson, whose hand drew the preamble to the 
Bill of Rights, has eloquently remarked that we had invoked for 
ourselves the benefit of a principle which we had denied to 
others. He saw and felt that slaves, as men, were embraced 
within this principle." 

THE VOICE OF FREMONT. 

John Charles Fremont, one of the noblest sons of the 
Sonth, says : — 

" I heartily concur in all movements which have for their ob- 
ject to repair the mischiefs arising from the violation of good 
faith in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I am opposed to 
slavery in the abstract, and upon principles sustained and made 
habitual by long settled convictions. I am inflexibly opposed 
to its extension on this continent beyond its present limits." 

" The great body of non-slaveholding Freemen, including those 
of the South upon whose w«Vfare slavery is an oppression, will 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGA.NST SLAVERY. 213 

discover that the power of the General Government over the 
Public Lands may be beneficially exerted to advance their inter- 
ests, ami secure their independence , knowing this, their suffra- 
ges will not be wanting to maintain that authority in the Union, 
which is absolutely essential to the maintenance of their own 
liberties, and which has more than once indicated the purpose of 
disposing of the Public Lands in such a way as would make every 
settler upon them a freeholder." 

THE VOICE OF BLAIR. 

In an Address to tho Republicans of Maryland, in 1856, 
Francis P. Blair says : — 

'• In every aspect in which slavery among us can be considered, 
•t is pregnant with difficulty. Its continuance in the States in 
which it has taken root has resulted in the monopoly of the soil, 
to a great extent, in the hands of the slaveholders, and the entire 
control of all departments of the State Government ; and yet a 
majority of people in the slave States are not slave-owners. This 
produces an anomaly in the principle of our free institutions, 
which threatens in time to bring into subjugation tc slave-own 
ers the great body of the free white population." 

THE VOICE OF MATJRY. 

Lieut. Maury, to whom has been awarded so much well- 
merited praise in the world of science, says : — 

" The fact must be obvious to tho far-reaching minds of our 
Statesmen, that unless some means of relief be devised, some 
channel afforded, by which the South can, when the time comes, 
pet rid of the excess of her slave population, she will be ulti- 
mately found with regard to this institution, in the predicament 
of the man with the wolf by the ears ; too dangerous to hold on any 
longer, and equally dangerous to let go. To our mind, the event 
is as certain to happen as any event which depends on the con- 
tingencies of the futii e, viz. : that unless means be devised forgra- 



214 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINSI SLAT :^RY. 

dually relieving the slave States from the undue pressure of this 
class upon them — unless some way be opened by which they may 
be rid of their surplus black population — the time will come — it 
may not be in the next nor in the succeeding generation — but, 
sooner or later, come it will, and come it must — when the two 
races will join in the death struggle for the mastery." 

THE VOICE OF BIRNEY. 

James G. Birney, of Kentucky, under whom the Aboli- 
tionists first became a National Party, and for whom thej 
voted for President in 1844, giving him 66,304 votes,says : 

" We have so lo-ifr practiced injustice, adding to it hypocrisy, 
in the treatmcMit of the colored race, both negroes and Indians, 
that we begin to rcuard injustice as an element — a chief element 
— the chief element of our government. But no government 
which admits injustice as an element can be a harmonious one or 
a permanent one. Harmony is the antagonist of injustice, ever 
has been, and ever will be ; that is, so long as injustice lasts, 
which cannot always be, for it is a lie, a semblance, therefore, 
perishable. True, froniAhe imperfection of man, his ambition 
and selfishness, injustice often finds its way incidentally into the 
administration of public affairs, and maintains its footing a long 
time before it is cast out by the legitimate elements of govern- 
ment." 

''Our slave States, especially the more southern of them, in 
which the number of slaves is greater, and in which, of course 
the sentiment of injustice is stronger than in the more northern 
ones, are to be placed on the list of decaying communities. To a 
philosophic observer, they seem to be falling back on the scale 
of civilization. Even at the present point of retrogression, the 
cause of civilization and human improvement would lose nothing 
by Iheir annihilation." 

THE VOICE OF DELAWARE. 

Strong anti-slavery sentiment had become popular in 



SOUIHERN TESTIjIONY AGAIK SI SLAYiSRY. 215 

Delaware as early as 1785. With Maryland and Missouri, 
it may now be ranked as a semi-slave State, Mr. McLanc, 
a member of Congress from this State in 1825, said : — 

*• I shall not imitate the example of other gentlemen by mak- 
ing professions of my love of liberty and abhorrence of slaverj, 
not, however, because I do not entertain them. I am an enemy 
to slaver3\" 

THE VOICE OF MARYLAND. 

Slavery has little vitality in Maryland. Baltimore, the 
greatest city of the South — greatest because freest — ^hasa 
population af more than two hundred thousand souls, and 
yet less than three thousand of these are slaves. In spite 
of all the unjust and oppressive statutes enacted by the 
oligarchy, the non-slaveholders, who wdth the exception 
of a small number of slavcholding emancipationists, may 
in truth be said to be the only class of respectable and 
patriotic citizens in the South, have wisely determined 
that their noble State shall be freed from the sin and the 
ehame, the crime and the curse of slavery ; and in accor- 
dance with this determination, long since formed, they aro 
giving every possible encouragement to free white labor, 
thereby, very properly, rendering the labor of slaves both 
unprofitable and disgraceful. The formation of an Aboli- 
t'oii Society in this State, in 1789, was the result of the 
influence of the masterly speeches delivered 'n the House 
of Delegates, by the Hon. "William Pinkncy whose undj^ 
iiig testimony we have already placed on record. Nearly 
seventy years ago, this eminent lawyer and Statesman 
declared to tie people j)f America, that if they did noi 



216 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

mark out the bounds of slavery, and adopt measures for 
its total extinction, it would finally " work a decay of the 
spirit of liberty in the free States." Further, he said that, 
" by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in 
the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage a sin(?le 
hour." In 118T, Luther Martin, of this State, said : — 

" Slaver}^ is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and 
has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is sup- 
ported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, 
and habituates us to tyranny and oppression." 

THE VOICE OF VIRGINIA. 

After introducing the unreserved and immortal testi- 
mony of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and the 
other great men of the Old Dominion, against the institu- 
tion of slavery, it may to some, seem quite superfluous to 
back the cause of Freedom by arguments from other Vir- 
ginia abolitionists ; but this State, notwithstanding all 
her more modern manners and inhumanity, has been so 
prolific of just views and noble sentiments, that we deem 
it eminently fit and proper to blazon many of them to the 
world as the redeeming features of her history. An Abo- 
lition Society was formed in this State in 1791. In a me- 
morial which the members of this Society presented to 
Congress, they pronounced slavery " not only an odious 
degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most 
<'ssential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant 
to the precepts of the Gospel." A Bill of Rights, unan- 
imously agreed upon by the Virginia Convention of June 
12, 1776, holds— 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAIXST SlAVERl 21*1 

" That all men are. by nature, equally free and independent ; 

That Goverument is, or ought to be, instituted for the common 
benefit, protection, and security, of the People, Nation, or Cora- 
munity ; 

That elections of members to seive as representatircs of the 
people in assembly ought to be free ; 

That all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common 
interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right 
of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, 
for public uses, without their own consent or that of their repre- 
sentatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have 
not in like manner assented, for the public good ; 

That the freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks 
of Liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Govern- 
ment s ; 

That no free Government or the blessing of Liberty can be 
preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, mod- 
eration, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent re- 
currence to fundamental principles." 

The " Virginia Society for tho Abolition of Slavery," 
organized in 1791, addressed Congress in these words : — 

'•Your memorialists, fully aware that righteousness exalteth a 
nation, and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but 
an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of hu- 
man nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, 
which breathes ' peace on earth and good will to men,' lament 
that a practice so inconsistent with true policy and the inaliena- 
ble rights of men. should subsist in so enlightened an age, and 
among a people professing that all mankind are, by nature 
equally entitled to freedom." 

THE VOICE OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

If the question, slavery or tw slavery, could be fairly pre- 
sented for the decision of the legal voters of North Caro- 
lina at the next popular election, we believe at least two- 

10 



218 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

thirds of tlicra would dcposite the no slavery ticket. Perhaps 
one-fourth of the slaveholders themselves would vote it, 
ioT the slaveholders in this State are more moderate, de- 
cent, sensible, and honorable, than the slaveholders in 
either of the adjoining* States^ or the States further South ; 
and we know that many of them are heartily ashamed of 
the vile occupations of slaveholding and slave-breeding in 
which they are engaged, for wG have the assurance from 
their own lips. As a matter of course, all the non-slave- 
holders, who are so greatly in the majority, would vote to 
suppress the degrading institution which has kept them so 
long in poverty and ignorance, with the exception of those 
who are complete automatons to the beck and call of their 
imperious lords and masterg, the major-generals of the 
oligarchy ^ 

How long shall it be before the citizens of North Caro- 
lina shall have the privilege of expressing, at the ballot- 
box, their true sentiments with regard to this vexed ques- 
ion ? Why not decide it at the next general election ? 
)oner or later, it must and will be decided — dec ded cor- 
;tly, too — and the sooner the better. The first Southern 
te that abolishes slavery will do herself an immortal 
)r. God grant that North Carolina may be that State, 
jmd soon I There is at least one plausible reason why 
tiiis good old State should be the first to move in this im- 
])ortant matter, and we will state it. On the 20th of May, 
1775, just one year one month and fourteen days prior to 
the adoption of the Jefifersonian Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, July 
4, 1776, 'he Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAIN'ST SLAVERY. 21& 

auiliorship of which is generally attributed to Ephraias \ 
Brevard, was proclaimed in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county 1 
North Carolina, and fully ratified in a second Conventior 
of the people of said county, held on the olst of the same 
month. And here, by the way, we may remark, that it is 
supposed Mr. Jefferson made use of this last-mentioned 
document as the basis of his draft of the indestructible 
title-deed of our liberties. There is certainly an identical- 
ness of language between the two papers that is well cal- 
culated to strengthen this hypothesis. This, however, is 
a controversy about whicli we are but little concerned. 
For present purposes, it is, perhaps, enough for us to 
know, that on the 20th of May, 1T75, when transatlantic 
tyranny and oppression could no longer be endured. North 
Carolina set her sister colonies a most valorous and praise- 
worthy example, and that they followed it. To her infa- 
mous slaveholding sisters of the South, it is now meet that 
she should set another noble example of decency, virtue, 
and independence. Let her at once inaugurate a policy 
of common justice and humanity — enact a system of 
equitable laws, having due regard to the rights and inter- 
ests of all classes of persons, poor whites, negroes, and 
nabobs, and the surrounding States will ere long applaud 
her measures, and adopt similar ones for the governance 
f themselves. 

Another reason, and a cogent one, why North Carolina 
should aspire to become the first free State of the South is 
this : The first slave State that makes herself respectable 
by casting out " the mother of harlots," and by rendering 
enterprise and industry honorable, will immediately rccerve 



220 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

a large accession of most worthy citizens from other State? 
in the Union, and thus lay a broad foundation of permanent 
political power and prosperity. Intelligent white farmers 
from the Middle and New England States will flock to our 
more congenial clime, eager to give Airty dollars per acre 
for the same lands that are now a drug in the market be- 
cause nobody tn ants them at the rate of five dollars per 
acre ; an immediate and powerful impetus will be given 
to commerce, manufactures, and all the industrial arts ; 
science and literature will be revived, and every part of 
the State will reverberate with the triumphs of manual 
and intellectual labor. 

At this present time, we of North Carolina are worth 
less than either of the four adjoining States ; let us abolish 
slavery at the beginning of the next regular decade of 
years, and if our example is not speedily followed, we shall, 
on or before the first day of January, 1870, be enabled to 
p-irchase the whole of Virginia and South Carolina, inclu- 
ding, perhaps, the greater part of Georgia. An exclusive 
'ease of liberty for ten years would unquestionably make 
us the Empire State of the South. But we have no dispo- 
sition to debar others from the enjoyment of liberty or any 
other inalienable right ; we ask no special favors ; what 
we demand for ourselves we are willing to concede to our 
neighbors. Hereby we make application for a lease of 
freedom for ten years ; shall we have it ? May God ena- 
ble us to secure it, as we believe He will. We give fair 
notice, however, that if we get it for ten years, we shall, 
with the approbation of Heaven, keep it twenty— forty — 
a thousand -forever I 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONX" AGAINST SLAVERY. 221 

We transcribe the Mecklenburg Resolutions, which, it 
will be observed, acknowledge the " inherent and inalien- 
able rights of man," and " declare ourselves a free and 
independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sove- 
reign and self-governing association, under the control of 
no power other than that of our God, and the general go- 
vernment of the Congress." 

MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 

As proclaimed in the town of Charlotte, North Carolina, 
May 20th, 1775, and ratified by the County of Mecklen- 
burg, in Convention, May 31st, 1775. 

" I. Resolved^Thai whosoever, directly or indirectly, abetted, 
or in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered 
and dangerous invasion of our rights as claimed by Great Britain, 
is an enemy to this country, to America, and to the inherent and 
inahenable rights of man. 

"II. Resolved— Th^t we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, 
do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us 
to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all 
allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connec- 
jtion, contract or association with that nation, who have wantonly 
trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the 
blood of American patriots at Lexington. 

"III. Resolved — That we do hereby declare ourselves a free 
and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign 
and self-governing association, under the control of no pc wer other 
than that of our God, and the general government of the Con- 
press ; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly 
pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our for- 
tunes, and our most sacred honor. 

" IV. Resolved— That as we now acknowledge the existence and 
control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this 
county, we do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each, 



222 SOUTHERX TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

and every of our former laws — wherein, nevertheless, the crowD 
of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privi- 
leges, immunities or authority therein," 

Had it not been for slavery, which, with all its other 
blighting and degrading influences, stifles and subdues 
every noble impulse of the heart, this consecrated spot 
would long since have been marked by an enduring 
monument, whose grand proportions should bear witness 
that the virtues of a noble ancestry are gratefully remem 
bered by an emulous and appreciative posterity. Yet, 
even as things are, we are not without genuine consola- 
tion. The star of hope and promise is beginning to beam 
brightly over the long-obscured horizon of the South ; and 
we are firm in the belief, that freedom, wealth, and mag- 
nanimity, will soon do justice to the memory of those fear- 
less patriots, whose fair fame has been suffered to moul- 
der amidst the multifarious abominations of slavery, pov- 
erty, ignorance and grovelling selfishness. 

Judge Iredell's testimony, which will be found on a 
preceding page, and to which we request the reader to 
recur, might have been appropriately introduced under 
our present heading. 

In the Provincial Convention held in North Carolina, in 
August, 1774, in which there were sixty-nine delegates, 
representing nearly every county in the province, it was — 

" Resolved — That we will not import any slave or slaves, or 
purchase any slave or slaves imported or brought into the Prc- 
rince by others, from any part of the world, after the first day 
of November next." 

In Iredell's Statutes, revised by Martin, it is stated that, 



SOUTnERX TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 223 

'In North C.irolina, no gener<il law at all was passed, prior co 
me revolution, declaring who might be slaves." 

That there is no legal slavery in the Southern States, and 
that slavery no where can be leg-alizcd, any more than 
theft, arson or murder can be legalized, has been virtually 
admitted by some of the most profound Southern jurists 
themselves ; and we will here digress so far as to furnish 
the testimony of one or two eminent lawyers, not of North 
Carolina, upon this point. 

In the debate in the United States Senate, in 1850, on 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, objected 
to Mr. Dayton's amendment, providing for a trial by jury, 
because, said he : — 

'' A trial by jury necessarilj' carries with it a trial of the whole 
right, and a trial of the right to service will be gone into, ac- 
cording to all the forms of the Court, in determining upon any 
other fact. Then, again, it is proposed, as a part of the proof to 
be adduced at the hearing, after the fugitive has been re-captured, 
that evidence shall be brought by the claimant to show that slavery 
is established in the State from which the fugitive has abscond- 
ed. Now this very thing, in a recent case in the city of New- 
York, was required by one of the judges of that State, which case 
attracted the attention of the authorities of Maryland, and against 
wliich they protested. In that case the State judge went so far as 
to say that the only mode of proving it was by reference to the Sta- 
tute book. Such proof is required in the Senator's amendment ; 
and if he means by this that proof shall be brought that slavery 
is established by existing laws, it is impossible to comply witti 
the requis'tion, for no such law can be produced. I apprehend, in 
any of l\\i slave States. I am not aware that there is a single 
State in which the institution is established by positive law." 

Julge Clarke, of Mississippi, says : — 



224 SOUl'HERX TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY, 

" In this State the legislature have c®nsidere(l slaves as reason 
able and accountable beings j and it would be a stigma upon the 
character of the State, and a reproach to the administration of 
justice, if the life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if 
he could be murdered in cold blood, without subjecting the often- 
der to the highest penalty known to the criminal jurisprudence 
of the country. Has the slave no rights, because he is deprived 
of his freedom? He is still a human being, and possesses al- 
those rights of which he is not deprived by the positive provi 
sions of the law. The right of the master exists not by force of 
the law of nature or nations, but by virtue only of the positive 
law of the State.'* 

The lion. Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, says : — 

'• Arguments drawn from the well-established principles, which 
confer and restrain the autliority of the parent over the child, 
the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have 
been pressed on us. The Court does not recognize their applica- 
tion ; there is no likeness between the cases ; they are in opposi- 
tion to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. 
The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery 
and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view 
is the happiness of the youtli, born to equal rights with that gov- 
ernor on whom the duty devolves of training the young to use- 
fulness, in a station which he is afterwards to assume among free- 
men. To such an end, and with such a subject, moral and intel- 
lectual instruction seem the natural means, and, for the most 
part, they are found to suffice. Moderate force is superadded 
only to make the others eu'ectual. If that fail, it is better to 
leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the ultimate 
correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately in- 
flicted b}-- a private person. "With slavery it is far otherwise. 
The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public 
safety ; the subject one doomed, in his own person and his pos 
terity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to 
ni ik u anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the 
fra'ts. What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 225 

being to convince him, what it is inipossibl-- but that the most 
stupid must feel and know can never be true, that he is thus to 
labor upon a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own 
personal happiness ? Such services can only be expected from 
one who Las no will of his own ; who surrenders his will in im- 
plicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the con- 
sequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. There 
is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. The 
power of the master must be absolute to render the submission 
of the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the 
harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man 
can ; and as a principle of moral right, every person in his re- 
tirement must repudiate it." 

An esteemed friend, a physician, who was l^rn and 
bred in Rowan county. North Carolina, and who now re- 
sides there, informs us that Judge Gaston, who was one 
of the half dozen Statesmen whom the South has produced 
since the days of the venerable fathers of the Republic 
was an avowed abolitionist, and that he published an ad- 
dress to the people of North Carolina, delineating, in a 
masterly p-duner, the material, moral, and social disad- 
vantages (^.f slavery. Where is that address ? Has it 
been suppressed by the oligarchy ? The fact that slave- 
holders have, from time to time, made strenuous efforts to 
expunge the sentiments of freedom which now adorn the 
works of nobler men than the noble Gaston, may, perhaps, 
fully account for the oblivious state into which his patrio- 
tic address seems to have fallen. 

THE VOICE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Poor South Carolina ! Folly is her nightcap ; fanati- 
cisn is her d ly-dream ; fire-eating is her pastime. She has 

10* 



226 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 

lost her better judgment ; the dictates of reason and phi 
losophy have no influence upon her actions. Like the wife 
who is pitiably infatuated with a drunken, worthless hus- 
band, she still clings, with unabated love, to the cause of 
lier shame, her misery, and her degradation. 

A Kentuckian has recently expressed his opinion of this 
State in the following language : — 

*^ South Carolina is bringing herself irrecoverably in the public 
contempt. It is impossible for any impartial lover of his coun- 
tr}'-, for any just thinking man, to witness her senseless and 
quenchless malignancy against the Union without the most im- 
measurable disgust and scorn. She is one vast hot-bed of dis- 
union. Iler people think and talk of nothing else. She is a fes- 
tering mass of treason." 

In 1854, there were assessed for taxation in 

SOUTH CAROLINA, 

Acres of Land 17,289,359 

V^aluedat $22,836,374 

Average value per acre $1,32 

At the same time there were in 

NEW JERSEY, 

Acres of Land 5,324,800 

Valued at $153,161,619 

Average value per acre $28,76 

We hope the Slavocrats will look, first on that picture, 
and then on this ; from one or the other, or both, they may 
glean a ray or two of wisdom, which, if duly applied, will 
be of incalculable advantage to them and their posterity 
TVe trust, also, tjii^t the non-slaveholding whites will view, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 221 

vfxiu discrifiiuating minds, the different lights and shades 
of these two pictures ; they are the parties most deeply 
interested ; and it is to them we look for the glorious revo- 
lution that is to substitute Freedom for Slavery. They 
have the power to retrieve the fallen fortunes of South 
Carolina, to raise her up from the loathsome sink of iniquity 
into which slavery has plunged her, and to make her one 
of the most brilliant stars in the great constellation of 
States. While their minds are occupied with other con- 
siderations, let them not forget the difference between 
twenty-eight dcllars and seventy-six cents, the value of land per 
acre in New Jersey, which is a second-rate free State, and 
one dollar and thirty-two cent>s, the value of land per acre in 
South Carolina, which is, par excellence, the model slave 
State. The difference between the two sums is twenty- 
seven dollars and forty-four cents, which would amount to 
precisely two thousand seven hundred and forty-four dol- 
lars on every hundred acres. To present the subject in 
another form, the South Carolina tract of land, containing 
two hundred acres, is worth now only two hundred and 
sixty-four dollars, and is depreciating every day. Let 
slavery be abolished, and in the course of a few years, 
the same tract will be worth five thousand seven hundred 
and fifty-two dollars, with an upward tendency. At thib 
rate, the increment of value on the total area of the 
State will amount to more than three times as much as the 
present estimated value of the slaves ! 

South Carolina has not always been, nor will slie always 
continue tc be, on the wrong side. From Ramsay's His- 
tory of t )r State, we learn that, in 1174, she — 



228 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 

*• Resolved — That Ilis Majesty's subjects in North America 
(without respect to color or other accidents) are entitled to all 
the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects 
within the Kingdom of Great Britain ; that it is their fundamen- 
tal right, that no man should suffer in his person or property 
without a fair trial, and judgment given by his peers, or bv the 
law of the land." 

One of her early writers, under the non de plume of Fhi- 
lodemus, in a political pamphlet published in Charleston 
in 1784, declares that — 

" Such is the fatal influence of slavery on the human mind, 
that it almost wholly effaces from it even the boasted character- 
istic of rationality." 

f 

This same writer, speaking of the particular interests 
of South Carolina, says : — 

" It has been too common with us to search the r^-^cords of 
other nations, to find precedents that may give sanction to our 
own errors, and lead us unwarily into confusion and ruin. It is 
our business to consult their histories, not with a view to tread 
right or wrong in their steps, but in order to investigate the real 
sources of the mischiefs that have befallen them, and to endeavor 
to escape the rocks which they have all unfortunately split upon. 
It is paying ourselves but a poor compliment, to say that we are 
incapable of profiting by others, and that, with all the informa- 
tion which is to be derived from their fatal experience, it is in 
vain for us to attempt to excel them. If, with all the peculiar 
advantages of our present situation, we are incapable of surpass- 
ing our predecessors, we must be a degenerate race indeed, and 
quite unworthy of those singular bounties of Heaven, which we 
are so unskilled or undesirous to turn to our benefit." 

A recent number of Frazer's Mag-azine contains a well- 
timed and well -^ritten article from the pen of \Vm. Henry 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAIVST SLAVERY. 229 

Hurlbut, of this State : and from it wo make the following 
extract : — 

" As all sagacious observers of the operation of the sj-stern of 
slaverj have demonstrated, the profitable employment of slave- 
labor is inconsistent with the development of agricultural sci- 
ence, and demands a continual supply of new and unexhausted 
soil. The^ slaveholder, investing his capital in the purchase of 
the laborers themselves, and not merely in soil and machines 
paying his free laborers out of the profit must depend for hia 
continued and progressive prosperity upon the cheapness and 
facility with which he can transfer his slaves to fi-esh and fertile 
lands. An enormous additional item, namely, the price of slaves, 
being added to the cost of production, all other elements of that 
cost require to be proportlonably smaller, or profits fail." 

In an address delivered before the South Carolina Insti- 
tute, in Charleston, Nov. 20th, 1856, Mr. B. F. Perry, of 
Greenville, truthfully says : — 

" It has been South Carolina's misfortune, in this utilitarian 
age, to have her gi'eatest talents and most powerful energies di- 
rected to pursuit?, which avail her nothing, in the way of wealth 
and prosperity. In the first settlement of a new country, agri- 
cultural mdustry necessarily absorbs all the time and occupation 
of its inhabitants. They must clear the forests and cultivate the 
earth, in order to make their bread. This is their first consider- 
ation. Then the mechanical arts, and manufactures, and com- 
merce, must follow in the footsteps of agriculture, to insure either 
•'ndividual or national prosperity. No people can be highly pros- 
perous without them. No people ever have been. Agriculture, 
alone, will not make or sustain a great people. The true policy 
of every people is^ to cultivate the earth, manufacture its pro- 
duets, and send them abroad, in exchange for those comforts and 
luxuries, and necessaries, Mhich their own country and their cwu 
industry cauno* g.ve or make. The dependence of South Car- 
olina on Europe, and the Northern States for all the neceFsaries 



230 SOUfFTCRN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

comforts and luxuries, which the mechanic arts afford, has, iv. 
fact, drained her of her wealth, and made her positively poor, 
when compared with her sister States of the Confederacy. It is 
at OMce mortifying and alarming, to see and reflect on our own 
dependence in the mechanic arts and manufactures, on strangers 
and foreigners. In the Northern States their highest talents 
and energy have been diversified, and more profitably employed 
in developing the resources of the country, in making new inven- 
tions in the mechanic arts, and enriching the community with 
science and literature, comm.erce and manufactures." 

THE VOICE OF GEORGIA. 

Of the Stat< s strictly Southern, Georgia is, perhaps, th-^ 
most thrifty. This prosperous condition of the State is 
mainly ascii'Lable to her hundred thousand free v^hite 
laborers — more than eighty-three thousand of whom aro 
engaged in agricultural pursuits. In few other slave 
States are the non-slaveholders so little under the domina- 
tion of the oligarchy. At best, however, even in the most 
liberal slave States, the social position of the non-slave- 
holding whites is but one short step in advance of that 
of the negroes ; and as there is, on the part of the oligar- 
chy, a constantly increasing desire and effort to usiu-p 
greater power, the more we investigate the subject the 
more fully are we convinced that nothing but the speedy 
and utter annihilation of slavery from the entire nation, 
can save the masses of white people in the Southern States 
from ultimately falling to a political level with the blacks 
—both occupying the most abject and g^ling condition 
of servitude of which it is possible for the human mind 
to conceive. 

Gen. Oglethorpe, under whose management the Colony 



4 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SI AVERY, '=>.31 

of Goorgia was settled, in 1733, was bitterly opposed to 
the institution of slavery. In a letter to Granville Sliarp, 
dated Oct. 13th, 17 T6, he says : — 

" ^ly friends and 1 settled the Colony of Georgia, ard by char- 
ter were established trustees, to make laws, &c. We determined 
not to suffer slavery there. But the slave merchants and theii 
adherents occasioned us not only much trouble, but ai last got 
the then government to favor them. We would not suDer slav- 
ery, (which is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law 
of England,) to be authorized under our authority ; we refused, 
as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime. The 
government, finding the trustees resolved firmly not to concur 
with what they believed unjust, took away the charter by which 
no law could be passed without our consent." 

On the 12th of January, 1175, in indorsing the proceed- 
ings of the first American Congress, among other resolu 
tions, "the Representatives of the extensive District oi 
Darien, in the Colony of Georgia" adopted the following : — 

" 5. To show the world that we are not influenced by any con 
tracted or interested motives, but a general philanthropy for a^^ 
mankind, of whatever climate, language, or complexion, we hereby 
declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural prac- 
tice of slavery in Am.erica, (however the uncultivated state of our 
country or other specious arguments may plead for it,) a practice 
founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our lib- 
erties, (as well as lives,) debasing part of our fellow creatures be- 
low men, and corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest ; ant 
is laying the basis of that liberty we contend for, (and which w» 
pray the Almighty to continue to the latest posterity,) upon a 
very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve, at all times, U> 
use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in 
this Colony upon the most safe and equitable footing fcr the 
masters and themselves 



232 SOUTHERN TrSTIMOXY AGAIXST SLAVERY. 

The Hon. Mr. Reid, of this State, in a speech deliverea 
in Congress, Feb. 1, 1820, says : — 

'' I am net the panegyrist of slarery. It is an unnatural sta-tCj 
a dark cbud, which obscures half the lustre of our free institu- 
tions. For my own part, though surrounded by slavery from my 
cradle to the present moment, yet — 

' I hate the touch of servile hands, 
I loathe the slaves who cringe around.' " 

As an accompaniment to those lines, he might ha^e 
uttered these : — 

" I would not have a slave to till my ground ; 
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned." 

Thus have we presented a comprehensive summary of 
the most unequivocal and irrefragable testimony of tho 
South against the iniquitous institution of human slavery 
What more can we say ? What more can we do ? We 
might fill a folio volume with similar extracts ; but we 
must forego the task ; the remainder of our space must be 
occupied with other arguments. In the foregoing excerpts 
is revealed to us, in language too plain to be misunderstood, 
the important fact that every truly great and good man 
-the South has ever produced, has, with hopeful confidence, 
looked forward to the time when this entire continent shall 
be redeemed from the crime and the curse of slavery. Our 
noble self-sacrificing forefathers have performed their part, 
and performed it well. They have laid us a foundation as 
enduring as th« earth itself ; in their dying moments they 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 23c 

admonished us to carry out their designs in the uj. tuilding 
and completion of the superstructure. Let us obey theii 
patriotic injunctions. 

From each of the six original Southern States we have 
introduced the most ardent aspirations for liberty — i\u 
must positive condemnations of slavery. From each ol 
tlie nine slave States which have been admitted into the 
Union since the organization of the General Government, 
we could introduce, from several of their wisest and best 
citizens, anti-slavery sentiments equally as strong and con- 
vincing as those that emanated from the great founders 
of our movement — Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Patrick 
Henry and the Randolphs. As we have already remarked, 
however, the limits of this chapter will not admit of the 
introduction of additional testimony from either of the old 
or of the new slave States. 

The reader will not fail to observe that, in presenting 
these solid abolition doctrines of the South, we have been 
careful to make such quotations as triumphantly refute, in 
every particular, the more specious sophistries of the 
oligarchy. 

The mention of the illustrious names above, reminds us 
of the fact, that the party newspapers, whose venal columns 
are eternally teeming with vituperation and slander, have 
long assured us that the Whig ship was to be steered by 
the Washington rudder, that the Democratic barque was 
to sail with the Jefferson compass, and that the Know- 
Ntjthing brig was to carry the Madison chart. Imposed 
upon by these monstrous falsehoods, we have, from time 
to time, been induced to engage passage on each of thfese 



'•34 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

corrupt and rickety old hulks ; but, in every instance, wo 
have been basely swamped in the sea of slavery, and are 
alone indebted for our lives to the kindness of Heaven and 
the art of swimming. Washington the founder of the 
Whig party ! JefTerson the founder of the Democratic 
party 1 Voltaire the founder of Christianity I God forbid 
that man's heart should always continue to be the citadel 
of deception — that he should ever be to others the antipode 
of what he is to himself. 

There is now in this country but one party that promises, 
in good faith, to put in practice the principles of Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other venerable Fathers 
of the Republic — the Republican party. To this party we 
pledge unswerving allegiance, so long as it shall continue 
to pursue the statism advocated by the great political 
prototypes above-mentioned, but no longer. We believe 
it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and 
the destiny of this party, to give the death-blow to slavery ; 
should future developments prove the party at variance 
with this belief — a belief, by the bye, which it has recently 
inspired in the breasts of little less than one and a half 
millions of the most intelligent and patriotic voters in 
America — we shall shake off the dust of our feet against 
it, and join one that will, in a summary manner, extirpate 
the intolerable grievance. 



NORTH KRN TESTIMONY. 235 



CHAPTER IV. 



NORTHERN TESTIMONF 



The best evidence that can be given of the enlightened 
patriotism and love of liberty in the Free States, is the 
fact that, at the Presidential election in 1856, they polled 
thirteen hundred thousand votes for the Republican can- 
didate, John C. Fremont. This fact of itself seems to 
preclude the necessity of streugthening our cause with the 
individual testimony of even their greatest men. Having, 
liowever, adduced the most cogent and conclusive anti- 
slavery arguments from the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, 
the Madisons, the Randolphs, and the Clays of the South, 
we shall now proceed to enrich our pages with gems of 
Liberty from the Franklins, the Hamiltons, the Jays, the 
Adamses, and the Websters of the North. Too close at- 
tention cannot be paid to the words of wisdom which we 
have extracted from the works of these truly eminent and 
philosophic Statesmen. We will first listen to 

THE VOICE OF FRANKLIN. 

Dr. Franklin was the first president of " The Pennsyl- 
vania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery ;*» 



236 NORTHERN TESllMONY. 

and it is now generally conceded that this was the first 
regularly organized American abolition Society — it having 
been formed as early as 1774, while we were yet subjects 
of the British government. In 1790, in the name and on 
behalf of this Society, Dr. Franklin, who was then within 
a few months of the close of his life, drafted a meoiorial 
" to the Senate and House of Eepresentatives of the 
United States," in which he said : — 



" Your memorialists, particularly engfiged in attending to the 
distresses arising from slavery, believe it to be their indispensa- 
ble duty to present this subject to your notice. They have ob- 
served, with real satisfaction, that many important and salutary 
powers are vested in you, for ' promoting the welfare and secur- 
ing the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States ; 
and as they conceive that these blessings ought rightfully to be 
administered, without distinction of color, to all descriptions of 
people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation 
that nothing which can be done for the relief of the unhappy ob- 
jects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed. 

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the por- 
tion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the 
strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, 
your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifia- 
ble endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a gen- 
eral enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these im- 
pressions, they earnestly entreat your attention to the subject 
of slavery ; that you will be pleased to countenance the restora- 
tion to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of 
freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the 
general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile sub- 
jection ; that you will devise means for removing this inconsis- 
tency of character from the American people ; that you will pro- 
mote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that 
you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you foi 



NORniERN TE:STIMO>rT. 231 

iliscouraging every species of traffic in the persons of cjur fcllow- 
mcn." 

On another occasion, he says : — '" Slavery is an atrocious de- 
basement of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF HAMILTON. 

Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant Statesman and finan- 
cier, tells us that — • 

*' The sacred rights of mankind are not to bevrummaged for 
among old parchments or musty records. They are written as 
with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the 
hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured 
by mortal power." 

Again, in 1774, addressing himself to an American Tory, 

he says : — 

'• The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and 
false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of man- 
kind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you 
could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, 
entitled to equal privileges. You would be convinced that natu- 
ral liberty is the gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole hu- 
man race ; and that civil liberty is founded on that." 

THE VOICE OF JAY. 

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under 
the Constitution of 1789, in a letter to the Hon. Elias Bou- 
dinot, dated Nov. 17, 1819, says : — 

''Little can be added to what has been said and written on the 
•subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it ought not to 
be introduced nor permitted in any of the new States, and that 
it ought to be gradually diminished and finally abolished in all 
of them 



238 NORTHERN TESTIMONY 

•' To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohi 
hit the miirration and importation of shaves into any of the States 
does not appear questionable. 

" The first article of the Constitution specifies the legislative 
powers committed to the Congress. The 9th section of that article 
has these words : ' The migration or importation of such persona 
as any of the now-existing States shall think proper to admit, 
shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, 
but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not ex- 
ceeding ten dollars for each person.' 

" I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be, tha' 
the power of the congress, although competent to prohibit such 
migration and importation, was to be exercised with respect to 
the then existing States, and them only, until the j'ear 1808, but 
the Congress were at liberty to make such prohibitions as to any 
new State, which might in the mean time be established. And 
further, that from and after that period, they were authorized to 
make such prohibitions as to all the States, whether new or old. 

"It will. I presume, be admitted, that slaves were the persons 
intended. The word slaves was avoided, probably on account 
of the existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the 
principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its be- 
ing repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of In 
dependence : ' We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' " 

In a previous letter, written from Spain, whither he had 
been appointed as minister plenipotentiary, he says, 
speaking of the abolition of slavery : — 

'• Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven 
will be impious. This is a strong expression, but it is just. I 
believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a 
maxim in His, as in our Courts, tha those who ask for equity 
ousrht to d 5 it." 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 23 P 

WILLIAM JAY. 

The Hon. Wm. Jay, a noble son of Ciiief Justice Johi 
.Kiy, says :— 

•• A crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or 
surrender them for ever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but 
to all who value the liberty our fathers achieved. Do you ask 
what we have to do with slavery ? Let our muzzled presses an- 
swer — let the mebs excited against us by the merchants and 
politicians answer — let the gag laws threatened by our governors 
and legislatures answer, let the conduct of the National Govern- 
ment answer." 

THE VOICE OF ADAMS. 

From the Diary of John Quincy Adams, " the old mau 
eloquent," we make the following extract : — 

" It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources 
of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and 
vice ; for what can be more false and more heartless than this 
doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights* of humanity to 
depend upon the color of the skin ? It perverts human reason 
and induces men endowed with logical powers to maintain that 
slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion ; that slaves are 
happy and contented in their condition ; that between master 
and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection ; that 
the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degrada- 
tion of the slave, while at the same time they vent execrations 
upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, 
burn at the stake negroes convicted of ^inmes, for the terror 
of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very men- 
tion of human rights as applicabkj to men of cr lor." 

THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

In a speech which he delivered at Niblo's Garden, in 



240 NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 

the city of New-York, on the 15th of March, 1847 Daniel 
"Webster, the great Expounder of the Constitution, said : — 

" On the general question of slavery, a great part of the com- 
munity is already strongly excited. The subject has not only 
attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a 
far deeper one ahead. It has arrested the religious feeling of 
the country, it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. 
He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human na- 
ture, and especially has he an erroneous estimate of the charac- 
ter of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of 
this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It wiii assuredly 
cause itself to be respected. But to endeavor to coin it into sil- 
ver, or retain its free expression, to seek to compress and con- 
fine it. warm as it is. and more heated as such endeav(jrs would 
inevitably render it — should this be attempted, I know nothing, 
even in the Constitution or Union itself, which might not be en- 
dangered by the explosion which might follow." 

\Vhen discussing the Oregon Bill in 1848, he said: — 

" I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstan- 
ces will I consent to the further extension of the area of slavery 
in <he United States, or to the further increase of slave repre- 
eertation in the House of Representatives." 

Under date of February 15th, 1850, in a letter to the 
Rjv. Mr. Furness, he says : — 

" IVom my earliest youth T have regarded slavery as a great 
moral and political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the nat- 
ural equality of mankind, founded only in superior power ; a 
standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the 
weaker. All pretense of defending it on the ground of different 
races, T have ever condemned. I have even said that if the black 
race is weaker, that is a reason against, not for, its subjection 
and oppression. In a relig'ous point of view I have ever regard- 
ed it, and even spoken cf ii, not as subject to any express deuun- 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 241 

nation, cither in the Old Testament or the New, but is opposed 
to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teachings of Jesus 
Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness 
jnst'ce, and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affection- 
ate, it does not seek anothers, and not its own ; it does not let 
flie oppressed, go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual art 
or oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of 
thinking among men, and such is the influence of what has been 
iong established, that even minds, religious ani tenderly con- 
scientious, such as would be shocked by an}" single act of oppres- 
sion, in any single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not 
111 ways moved by the reflection that slavery is a continual and 
permanent violation of human rights." 

While delivering a speech at Buffalo, in the State of 
New York, in the summer of 1851, only about twelve 
months prior to his decease, he made use of the following 
emphatic words : — 

"I nev^er would consent, and never have consented, that there 
should be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thir- 
teen States had at the formation of the Union. Never, never ." 

NOAH WEBSTER. 

.Noali Webster, the great American vocabulist, says: — 

* That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be 
(IS color, who has not forfeited it b}'' some violation of muni- 
cipal law, is a truth established by God himself, in the very crea- 
tion of human being?. No time, no circumstance, no human 
power or policy can change the nature of this truth, nor repeal 
the fundamental laws of society, by which every man's right to 
liberty is guarantied. The act of enslaving men is always a vio- 
lation of those great primary laws of society, by which alone^ 
ilui niaster himself hoMs rvery pHiticle of his own freedom." 

a 



242 NORTHERN 'ESTIMONY. 

THE VOICE OF CLINTON. 

DeWitt Clinton, the father of the great system of iuter« 
ual improvements in the State of New York, speaking of 
despotism in Europe, and of slavery in America, a&ks : — 

" Have not prescription and precedent — patriarchal dominion 
-divine right of kings and masters, been alternately called in to 
sanction the slavery of nations 1 And would not all the despot- 
isms of the ancient and modern world have vanished into air, if 
^he natural equality of mankind had been properly understood 
and practiced ? * * * This declares that the* same measure of 
justice ought to be measured out to all men, without regard to 
adventitious inequalities, and the intellectual and physical dispari- 
ties which proceed from inexplicable causes.^' 

THE VOICE OF WARREN. 

Major General Joseph Warren, one of the truest pat 
riots of the Revolution, and the fii"st American officer of 
rank that fell in our contest with Great Britain, says : — 

*' That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and 
that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has 
honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefroniv 
are truths that common sense has placed beyond tlie reach of 
contradiction. And no man, or body of men, can, vrithout being 
guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose cf the persons 
or acquisitions of any other man or body of men, unless it can be 
})roved that such a right has arisen from some compact between- 
^he parties in which it has been explicitly and freely granted." 

Otis, Hancock, Ames, and others, should be heard, but 
for the want of space. Volumes upon volumes might be 
filled with extracts similar to the above, from the works 
of the deceased Stutc«men and sages of tlie Xurth, who. 



NOirrilEKN TEaTlMONV. 2^^ 3 



while livin^^ proved themselves equal to tiie ta-^k of ex- 
termhiating from their own States tl e matchless curse of 
human slavery. Such are the men who, though no lonp^ei 
with us in the flesh, " still live." A living principle— an 
immortal interest-have they, invested in every great and 
good work that distinguishes the free States. The rail- 
roads, the canals, the telegraphs, the factories, the fleets 
of merchant vessels, the magnificent cities, the scientific 
modes of agriculture, the unrivaled institutions of learning, 
and other striking evidences of progress and improvement 
at the North, are, either directly or indirectly, the off- 
sprhig of their gigantic intellects. When, if ever, com- 
merce, and manufactures, and agriculture, and great en- 
terprises, and truth, and liberty, and- justice, and magnan- 
imity, shall have become obsolete terms, then their names 
may possibly be forgotten, but not tell then. 

An army of brave and worthy successors— champions 
of Freedom now living, have the illustrious forefathers of 
the North, in the persons of Garrison, Greeley, Giddtngs, 
Goodell, Grow, and Gerrit Smith ; in Seward, Sumner, 
Stowc, Raymond, Parker, and Phillips ; in Beecher, Banks, 
Burlingame, Bryant, Hale, and Hildreth ; in Emerson, 
Daytoii, Thompson, Tappan, King and Cheevcr ; in AVhit- 
tier, Wilson, Wade, Wayland, W^eed, and Burleigh. Those 
are 'the men whom, in connection with their learned and 
eloquent compatriots, the Everetts, the Bancrofts, the 
Prescotts, the Chapins, the Longfellows, and the Banas, 
future historians, if faithful to their calling, will place on 
record as America's true statesmen, literati, preachers, 
philosophers, and philanthropists, of tlic present age 



244 NORTHERN TESTIMONY, 

Ii^ this connection, however, it may not be amiss tc ro 
maik that the Homers, the Platos, the Bacons, the New- 
tons, the Shakspeares, the Miltons, the Blackstoncs, the 
Cuvieis, the Humboldts, and the Macaulays of Amercia, 
nave not yet been produced ; nor, in our humble judgment, 
will they be, until slavery shall have been overthrown and 
"reedom established in the States of Virginia, Kentucky, 
ind Tennessee. Upon the soil of those States, when free, 
dY on other free soil crossed by about the same degrees 
3f latitude, and not distant from the Appalachian chain of 
mountains, will, we believe, be nurtured into manhood, in 
the course of one or two centuries, perhaps, as great men 
as those mentioned above — greater, possibly, than any 
that have ever yet lived. Whence their ancestors may 
come, whether from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from 
Oceanica, from North or South America, or from the 
islands of the sea, or whatever honorable vocation they 
may now be engaged in, matters nothing at all. For 
ought we know, their great-grandfathers are now humble 
artisans in Maine, or moneyed merchants in Massachu 
setts ; illiterate poor whites in Mississippi, or slave-driv- 
ing lordlings in South Carolina ; frugal farmers in Michi- 
gan, or millionaires in Illinois ; daring hunters in the 
Rocky Mountains, or metal-diggers in California ; peasants 
in France, or princes in Germany — no matter where, or 
what, the scope of countiy above-mentioned is, in our 
opinion, destined to be the birth-place of their illustrious 
offspring — the great savans of the New World, concern- 
ing whom we should console ourselves with tlie hope that 
tliey are not buried deeply in the matrix of the future. 



rKSTTMONY OF THE NATIONS. 21' 



CHAPTER V. 

TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

T% the true friends of freedom throughout the world, it 
is a pleasing thouglit, and one which, by being communi-. 
cated to others, is well calculated to universalize the prin- 
ciples of liberty, that the great heroes, statesmen, and 
sages, of all ages and nations, ancient and modern, who 
have ever had occasion to speak of the institution of hu- 
man slavery, have entered their most unequivocal and 
positive protests against it. To say that they disapproved 
of the system would not be sufficiently expressive of the 
utter detestation with which they uniformly regarded it. 
That they abhorred it as the vilest invention that the Evil- 
One has ever assisted bad men to concoct, is quite evi- 
dent from the very tone and construction of their lan- 
guage. 

Having, with much pleasure and profit, heard the testi- 
mony of America, through her representative men, we 
will now hear that of other nations, through their repre- 
sentative men — doubting not that we shall be more than 
remunerated for our time and trouble. AVe will first 
listen to 



246 TESTIMONY OB THE NATIONS. 

THE VOICE OF ENGLAND. 

In the case of James Somerset, a negro wno had been 
kidnapped in Africa, transported to Virginia, there sold 
into slavery, thence carried to England, as a waiting-boy, 
and there induced to institute proceedings against his 
master for the recovery of his freedom, 

MANSFIELD Saj^S ! 

" The state of slavery is of snch a nature that it is incapahle 
of being introduced on auy reasons, moral or pohtical, but only 
by positive law, wliich preserves its force long after the reasons, 
occasion, and time itself whence it was oivated, is erased from the 
memory. It is so odious that nothing can be sufficient to sup- 
port it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, 
may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed 
or approved by the law of Eiigland, and therefore the black must 
be discharged." 

LOCKE sa^'s : — 

" Slavery is so vile, so miserable a state of man, and so directly 
opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, tnat 
it is hard to be convinced that an Englishman, much less a gen- 
tleman, should plead for it." 

Again, he says : — 

" Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common t( 
all men, yet every man has a property in his own person ; this 
nobody has any right to but himself." 

PITT says : — 
" It is injustice to permit slavery to remain f . r a single hour." 

FOX says : — 
'With regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation of ita 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 247 

existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of 
robbery, and a restriction of murder. Personal freedom is a 
right of which he who deprives a fcllow-creataro is criminal in 
so depriving him, and he who withholds is no less criminal in 
withholding," 

SHAKSPEABE says : — 

" A man is master of his liberty," 

igain, he says : — 

'' It is the curse of Kings, to be attended 
B}'- slaves, that take their humors for a warrant 
To break within the bloody house of life, 
And, on the winking of authority, 
To understand a law *, to know the nyeaning 
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns 
More upon humor than advised respect." 

\gain : — 

" Heaven will one day free us from this slavery.*' 

Again : — 

" Liberty 1 Freedom ! Tyranny is dead ! — 
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets ; 
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement" 

cowPER says : — 

"Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free. 
They touch our country and their shackles falL 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then. 
And let it circulate through every vein 
Of all your Empire, that wliere Britain's power 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too !" 



24 S TESTIMONY OF THE VATIOXS. 

MILTON asks : — 

" "Where is the beauty to see, 

Like the sun-brilliant brow of a nation when fr>»e ?" 

Again, he says : — 

'' If our fathers promised for themselves, to make themselves 
slaves, they could make no such promise for us." 

Again : — 

"Since, therefore, the law is chiefly right it?ason, if we are 
bound to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the very same 
reason and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and 
minister of the devil.*' 

DR. JOHNSON says : — 

** No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of 
nature must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken 
away." 

DR. PRICE says : — 

'' If you have a right to make another man a slave, he has a 
right to make you a slave." 

BLACKSTONE says : — 

"If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law of na- 
ture and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much 
^ess can they reduce the offspring." 

Again, he says : — 

" The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in the 
enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by 
the immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that the first 
and primary end of human lav/s is to maintain those absolute 
rixhts of individuals. 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 249 

Again : — 

"If any human law shall allow or require us to cuMimit crime, 
vre arc bound to transgress that human law, or else we must 
offend both the natural and divine." 

COKE says : — 

"What the Parliament doth, shall be holdcn for naught, when- 
ever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature." 

HAMPDEN says : — 

" The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice is not 
law ; and w^hat is not law, ought not to be obeyed." 

HARRINGTON says : — ■ 

"All men naturally, are equal ; for though nature with a noble 
variety has made diff*erent features and lineaments of men, yet as 
to freedom, she has made every one alike, and given them the 
same desires." 

FORTEscuE says : — 

"Those rights which God and nature have established, and 
which are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, 
need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in 
every man than they are ; neither do they receive any additional 
strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. 
On the contrary, no human power has any authority to abridge 
or destroy them, unless the owner himself shall commit some act 
that amounts to a forfeiture." 

Again, be says : — 

' The law, therefore, which supports slavery and opposes lib- 
erty, must necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling 
of human nature advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced by hu- 
man w^ickedness, bu' God advocates liberty, by the nature which 
ho has given to man ' 



450 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 
BROUGHAM SajS I 

" Tell me not of lights — talk not of the property of the planter 
*n his slaves. I deny the right ; I acknowledge not the property. 
In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim. There is 
a law above all the enactments of human codes, the same through- 
out the world, the same in all times ; it is the law written by the 
finger of God on the hearts of men ; and by that law. unchangeable 
and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and ab- 
hor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty 
phantasy that man can hold property in man." 

THE VOICE OF IRELAND. 

BURKE says : — ■ 

•' Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous 
to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not 
to be suffered to exist." 

CURRAN says : — 

•• I speak in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty 
commensurate with and inseparable from British soil ; which 
proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he 
sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he 
treads is holy and consecrated by the genius of Universal Eman- 
cipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been 
pronounced; no matter what complexion, incompatible with free- 
dom, an Indian or African sun may have burnt upon him ; no 
matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven 
down ; no matter with what solemnities he may have been de- 
voted upon the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred 
soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust 5 
his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; and he stands )'e- 
deemed, regenerated and disenthralled by the irresistible genius 
of Universal Emancipation,'' 



TESTIMONY OF TOE NATIONS. 251 

riie Dublin University Magazine for Dccembei, 1856, 
says : — 

'•' The United States must learn, from the example of Rome, 
that Christianity and the pagan institution of slavery cannot co- 
exist together. The Republic must take her side and choose he r 
favorite child j for if she love the one, she must hate the other." 

THE VOICE OF SCOTLAND, 

BEATTiE says : — 

"Slavery is inconsistent with the dearest and most essential 
rights of man's nature ; it is detrimental to virtue and industry ; 
it hardens the heart to those tender sympathies which form the 
most lovely part of human character ; it involves the inno- 
cent in hopeless misery, in order to procure wealth and pleasure 
for the authors of that misery ; it seeks to degrade into brutes 
beings whom the Lord of Heaven and Earth endowed with ra- 
tional soulsj and created for immortality ; in short, it is utterly 
repugnant to every principle of reason, religion, humanity, and 
conscience. It is impossible for a considerate and unprejudiced 
mind, to think of slavery without horror." 

MILLER says : — 

" The human mind revolts at a serious discussion of the sub- 
ject of slavery. Every individual, whatever be his country or 
complexion, is entitled to freedom." 

MACKNIGHT SayS I 

Men-stealers are inserted among the daring criminals against 
whom the law of God directed its awful curses. These were 
persons who kidnapped men to sell them for slaves ; and this 
practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities and oppres- 
sions of slavery ; nor can a slave dealer easily keep free frou: 
this cr'minalitj, if indeed the receiver is as bad as the thief." 



252 TESTIMONY OF TRS NATIONS. 
THE VOICE OF FRANCE. 
. LAFAYETTE SajS : 

" I would never have drawn my sword in the cause o America, 
if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a 'and of 
slavery.*' 

Again, while in the prison of Magdeburg, he says : — 

" I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation 
at Cayenne ; but I hope Madame de Lafayette will take care that 
the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty." 

0. Lafayette, grandson of General Lafayette, in a let- 
ter under date of April 26th, 1851, says ; — 

" This great question of the Abolition of Negro Slavery, which 
has my entire sympathy, appears to me to have established its 
importance throughout the world. At the present time, the 
States of the Peninsula, if I do not deceive myself, are the only 
European powers who still continue to possess slaves ; and 
America, while continuing to uphold slavery, feels daily, more and 
more how heavily it weighs upon her destinies." 

MONTESQUIEU asks : — 

" "What civil law can restrain a slave from running away, since 
he is not a member of society ?" 

Again, he says : — 

" Slavery is contrary to the fundamental principles of all socie- 
ties." 

Again : — 

**In democracies, where they are all upon an equality, slavery 
is contrary to the principles of the Constitution," 



TESTlMOXy f THE NATIONS. 253 

Acrain : — 



"■&' 



" Nothing puts one nearer the condition of a brute than a ways 
to see freemen and not be free." 

Ag-ain : — 

'• Even the earth itself, which teems with profusion under the 
cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks into barrenness 
from the contaminating sweat of a slave." 

LOUIS X. issued the following edict : — 

" As all men are by nature free born, and as this Kingdom is 
called the Kingdom of Franks, (freemen) it shall be so in reality. 
It is therefore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted 
throughout the whole Kingdom upon just and reasonable terms." 

BUFFO X says : — 

"It is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are endowed with 
excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human virtue. I 
cannot write their history without lamenting their miserable 
condition." " Humanity revolts at those odious oppressions that 
result from avarice." 

ROUSSEAU says : — 

'• The terms slavery and right, contradict and exclude each 
other." 

BRissoT says : — 

'•Slavery, in all its forms, in ail its degrees, is a violation of 
divine law and a degradation of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF GERMANY. 

GROTius says : — 

^' Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slavea 
or free men. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft." 



254 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

GOETHE say a : — 

Such busy multitudes I fain would see 
Stand upon free soil with a people free." 

LUTHER says : — 

Unjust violence is, by no means, the ordinance of God and 
therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whe- 
ther the command comes from pope, emperor, king or master." 

An able German writer of the present day, says, in a 
recent letter to his friends in this country : — 

*' Consider that the cause of American liberty is the cause of 
universal liberty ; its failure, a triumph of despotism everj-where. 
Remember that while American liberty is the great argument of 
European Democracy, American slaver}^ is the greater argument 
of its despotism. Remember that all our actions should be gov- 
erned by the golden rule, whether individual, social, or political ; 
and no government, and, above all, no republican government, is 
safe in the hands of men that practically deny that rule. Will 
you support by your vote a system that recognizes property of 
man in man ? A system which sanctions the sale of the child by 
its own father, regardless of the purpose of the buyer ? What 
need is there to present to 3'ou the unmitigated wrong of slavery ? 
It is the shame of our age that argument is needed against 
slavery. 

" Liberty is no exclusive property ; it is the property of man- 
kind of all ages. She is immortal, though crushed, can never die ; 
though banished, she will return ; though fettered, she will yet 
be free." 

THE VOICE OF ITALY. 

CICERO says : — 

•^ By the grand laws of nature, all men are borr free, and thiis 
law is universally binding upon all men." 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. So5 

Again, he says : — 

''Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." 

Again : — 

" Law is not something wrought out by man's ingenuity, nor i.* 
IE a decree of the people, but it is something eternal, governing 
tne world by the wisdom of its commands and prohibitions." 

Again : — 

*' ^Yhatever is just is also the true law, nor can this true law 
be abrogated by any written enactments." 

Again : — 

'•If there be such a power in the decrees and commands of 
fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why do 
they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded 
as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can make wrong right, 
can it not make bad good ?" 

Again : — 

" Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have 
made anything rather than laws." 

Again : — 

" The law of all nations forbids one man to pursue his advan- 
tage at the expense of another." 

LACTANTius says : — 

" Justice teaches men to know God and to love men, to love 
vnd assist one another, being all equally the children of God." 

LEO X. says : — 

" Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry 
out against the state of slavery." 



256 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

THE VOICE OF GREECE. 

SOCRATES says : — 
" Slayery is a system of outrage and robbery." 

ARISTOTLE says : — 

*' It is neither for the good, nor is it just, seeing all men are by 
nature alike, and equal, that one should be lord and master over 
others." 

POLYBius says : — • 

'None but unprincipled and beastly men in societj'' assume the 
mastery over their fellows, as it is among bulls, bears, and cocks." 

PLATO says : — 

" Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice." 

From each of the above, and from other nations, addi- 
tioDal testimony is at hand ; but, for reasons already 
assigned, we forbear to introduce it. Corroborative of the 
correctness of the position which we have assumed, even 
Persia has a voice, which may be easily recognized in the 
tones of her immortal Cyrus, who says : 

" To fight, ill order not to be made a slave, is noble." 

Than Great Britain no nation has more heartily or hon- 
orably repented of the crime of slavery — no nation, on the 
perception of its error, has ever acted with more prompt 
magnanimity to its outraged and unhappy bondsmen. 
Entered to her credit, many precious jewels of liberty re- 
main in our possession, ready to be delivered when called 
for ; of their value some idea may be formed, when we 
state that they are filigreed with snch names as Wilber 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 2'0, 

force, Buxton, Granville, Grattan, Camden, Clarkson, 
Sharp, Sheridan, Sidney, Martin, and Afacaulay. 

Virginia, the Carol iiias, and other Southern States, 
which are provided with lepuhlican (!) forms of govern- 
ment, and which have abolished freedom, should learn, 
from the history of the monarchal governments of the Old 
World, if not from the example of the more liberal and 
enlightened portions of the New, how to abolish slavery. 
The lesson is before them in a variety of exceedingly in- 
teresting forms, and, sooner or later, they must learn it, 
either voluntarily or by compulsion. Virginia, in particu- 
lar, is a spoilt child, having been the pet of the General 
Government for the last sixty-eight years ; and like most 
other spoilt children, she has become froward, peevish, 
perverse, sulky and irreverent — not caring to know her 
duties, and failing to perform even those which she does 
know. Her superiors perceive that the abolition of sla- 
very would be a blessing to her ; she is, however, either 
too ignorant to understand the truth, or else, as is the 
more probable, her false pride and obstinacy restrain her 
from acknowledging it. What is to be done ? Shall 
ignorance, or prejudice, or obduracy, or willful meanness, 
triumph over knowledge, and liberality, and guilelessness, 
and laudable enterprise ? No, never I Assured that Vir- 
ginia and all the other slaveholding States are doing 
wrong every day, it is our duty to make them do right, if 
we have the power ; and we believe we have the powei 
now resident within their own borders. What are the 
opinions, generally, of the nor. -slaveholding whites ? Let 
them speak. 



258 TESTIMONY OF THS CHURCHES. 



CHAPTER VI. 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 



''Run hence, proclaim, or}- Ii about the streets. 
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out. 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement !" 



In quest of arguments against slavery, we have perused 
the works of (several eminent Christian writers of different 
denominations, and we now proceed to lay before the reader 
the result of a portion of our labor. As it is the special 
object of this chapter to operate on, to correct and cleans(? 
the consciences of slaveholding professors of religion, we 
shall adduce testimony only from the five churches to 
which they, in their satanic piety, mostly belong — the 
Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Methodist, 
and the Roman Catholic — all of which, thank Heaven, are 
destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly aboli- 
tionized. With few exceptions, all the other Christian 
sects are, as they should be, avowedly and inflexibly op- 
posed to the inhuman institution of slavery. The C<m- 
gregational, the Quaker, the Lutheran, the Dutch and 
German Refcrmed, the Unitarian, and the Universalist, 
especially, ai t all honorable, able, and eloquent defenders 



TESTIMON'V OF THE CITURl IIE3. 259 

of the natural rights of man Wc will b'^gin by intro- 
ducing' a mass of 

PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY. 

The Rev. x'Vlbert Barnes, of Philadelphia, one of the most 
learned Presbyterian preachers and commentators of the 
day, says :- 

" There is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass 
of mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature ; 
that it is contrary to the dictates of humanity ; that it is essen- 
tially unjust, oppressive, and cruel ; that it invades the rights of 
libeit}^ with which the Author of our being has endowed all hu- 
man beings ; and that, in all the forms in which it has ever ex- 
isted, it has been impossible to guard it from what its friends 
and advocates would call ^abuses of the s^'stem.' It is a viola- 
tion of the first sentiments expressed in our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and on which our fathers founded the vindication of 
their own conduct in an appeal to arras. It is at war with all 
that a man claims lor himself and for his own children ; and it is 
opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in all ages, for freedom. 
The claims of humanity plead against it. The struggles for free- 
dom everywhere in our world condemn it. The instinctive 
feeling in every man's own bosom in regard to himself is a con- 
demnation of it. The noblest deeds of valor, and of patriotism 
in our own land, and in all lands where men have struggled for 
freedom, are a condemnation of the system. All that is noble 
:n man is opposed to it ; all that is base, oppressive, and cruel 
pleads for it. 

" The spirit of the New Testament is against slavery, and the 
principles of the New Testament, if fairly applied, would abolish 
it. In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase 
and own a slave ; no man is commended as adding anything to 
the evidences of his Christian character, or as performing t!ie 
appropriate duty of a Christian, for owning one. No where ifi 
the New Testament is the institution referred to as a good one, 
or as a desiraUe one. It is commonly — indeed, it is almost uni- 



260 TESTIMONY OF THE C?IUR^.1IES. 

versally — conceded that the proper application ot who principlea 
of the New Testament would abolish slavery every where, or tliat. 
the state of things which will exist when the Gospel shall be 
fairly applied to all the relations of life, slavery will not be found 
among those relations. 

*• Let slavery be removed from the church, and let the voice of 
tlie church, with one accord, be lifted up in favor of freedom ; 
let the church be wholly detached from the institution, and let 
there be adopted by all its ministers and members an interpre- 
tation of the Bible — as I believe there may be and ought to be — 
that shall be in accordance with the deep-seated principles of our 
nature in favor of freedom, and with our own aspirations for lib- 
erty, and with the sentiments of the world in its onward pro- 
gress in regard to human rights, and not only would a very 
material objection against the Bible be taken away — and one 
which would be fatal if it were well founded — but the establish- 
ment of a very strong argument in favor of the Bible, as a reve- 
lation from God, would be the direct result of such a position." 

Thomas Scott, the celebrated English Presbyterian Com 
mentator, says : — 

'' To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses 
as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a 
ship, is, no doubt, a most detestable and anti-Christian practice." 

From a resolution denunciatory of slavery, unanimously 
adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church, in 1818, we make the following extract : — 

'' We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human 
race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sac- 
red rights of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law 
of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and 
as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gos- 
jpe\ of Christ, which enjoins that ' all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' * * ♦ We 
rejoic ^ that the church to which we belong commenced, as early 



TESriMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 261 

as any other in lliis country, the good work of endeavoring to 
put an end to slavery, and that in the same work many of its 
members have ever since been, and now are, among the most ac- 
tive, vigorous, and efficient labonjrs. * ♦ * "We earnestly exhort 
them to continue, and, if possible, to increase, their exertions to 
elfect a total aholition of slavery." 

A Committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an address 
to the Prosbyterians of that State, says : — 

" That our negroes wiil be worse off, if emancipated, is, we feel, 
but a specious pretext for lulling our own pangs of conscience, 
and answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us 
believe that God has so created a whole race that it Is better for 
them to remain in perpetual bondage." 

EPISCOPAL TESTIMONY. 

BISHOP HORSLEY says : 

*' Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can ex- 
tenuate." 

BISHOP BUTLER says : — 

'• Despicable as the negroes may appear in our e3^es, they are 
tiie creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ 
died, and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end 
for which they were made, and of the means whereby they may 
become partakers of the general redemption." 

BISHOP PORTEUS says : — 

'• The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the 
nmrderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals 
on earth." 

John Jay, Esq., of the City of New- York — a most exem- 
plary Episcopalian —in a pamphlet entitled, '* Thoughts on 



262 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHiSS. 

the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in Relation tc Slavciy,** 

says : — 

** Alas ! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit 
of her ancient mother ! She has not merely remained a mute and 
careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with 
hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be 
seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and 
influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful 
blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the s}' stem 
of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, 
whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in pub- 
lic nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the 
progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly de 
fending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occa- 
sionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom '• 

A writer in a late number of " The Anti-Slavery Church 
man," published in Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a c^r 
tain portion of the New Testament, says : — 

" This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of 
Gospel ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must 
proach what this passage enjoins — and if they do this, they must 
preach against American slavery. Its being connected with pol- 
itics does not shield them. Political connections cannot place 
sin under protection. They cannot throw around it guards that 
the public teachers of morals may not pass. Sin is a violation 
>f God's law — and God's law must be proclaimed and enforced 
at all hazards. This is the business of the messenger of God. 
:ind if anything stands in its way, it is his right, rather it is his 
-olemn commission, to go forward — straightway to overpass th* 
lines that would shut him out, and utter his warnings. Manv 
sins there are, that, in like manner, might be shielded. Fashion, 
and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much sin in 
respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God's ministers. 
But what are th^se, that they should seal a minister's lips— what 
more are the wishes ol politicians?" 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCilES. 263 

For further testimony from this branch of the Christian 
pystem, if desired, we refer tlie reader to the Rev. Dudley 
X. Tyng', thi Rev. Evan M. Johnson, and the Rev. J. Mc- 
Namara, — a 1 Broad Church Episcopalians, whose magic 
eloquence and iiTcsistible arguments bid fair, at an early 
day, to win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, 
justice and humanity, the greater number of their Iligb 
and Low Church brethren. 

BAPTIST TESTIMONY. 

Concerning' a certain text, the Rev. Mr. Brisbane, once 
a slaveholding Baptist in Sonth Carolina, says : — 

" Paul was speaking of the law as havinG: been made for men- 
stealcrs. Where is the record of that law ? It is in Exodus 
xxi. 16, and in these words: ' lie that stealeth a man, and selleth 
him, or if he be found in his possession, he shall surely be put 
to death.' Here it wili be perceived that it was a crime to sell 
the man, for which ihe seller must suffer death. But it was no less. 
a crime to hold him as a slave, for this also was punishable with 
death. A man may be kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. 
There was no law against that. And why ? Because kidnap- 
ping a slave and placing him in a condition of freedom, was only 
to restore him to his lost riglits. But if the man who takes him 
becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a criminal, 
liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of liberty. 
Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the first 
holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not to his 
successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But 
wlat is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give 
him a certain sum of money if he will steal a white diild in Car- 
olina and deliver him to me. He steals him ; I pa}' him the 
THonoy upon his delivering the child to me. Is it not my act as 
fully as his? Am T not also the thief? But does it alter the 
c;iso vvhethoi T agree before hand or not. to pay him for the 



264 TESTIMONY OF TLK CHURCHES. 

child ? He steals him, and then sells him to me. He is found 
by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I purchased 
him and paid my money for him ? Will it not be asked, Do you 
not know that a white person is not merchantable ? And shall I 
not have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my ser- 
vice as a slave ? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but 
in the judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a 
criminal. So when one man steals another and offers him for 
sale, no one, in view of the Divine law, can buy him, for the rea- 
son that the Divine law forbids that man shall in the first place 
be made a merchantable article. The inquiry must be, if 1 buy, 
I buy in violation of the Divine law, and it will not do for me 
to plead that I bought him. I have him in possession, and that is 
enough, God condemns me for it as a man-stealcr. My having 
him in possession is evidence against me, and the Mosaic law 
says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now, when Paul 
said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also saying the 
law was made for slaveholders 1 I am not intending to ap- 
ply this term in harsh spirit. But I am bound, as I fear God 
to spoak what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle." 

la his "Elements of Moral Science," the Rev. Francis 
Wayland, D.D., one of the most erudite and distinguished 
Baptists now living, says : — 

'' Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the mas 
ter has a right to control the actions, physical and intellectual, of 
the slave, for his own, that is, the master's individual benefit ; 
and, of course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes 
in competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in 
the latter the right to pursue it. It supposes, at best, that the 
relation between master and slave, is not that which exists be 
tween man and man, but is a modification, at least, of that which 
exists between man and the brutes. 

" Now, this manifestly supposes that the two classes of beings 
are created with dissimilar rights : that the master posseses 
rights which have never been conceded by the slave ; and that 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHCRCHES. 265 

the slave has no rights at all over the means of happiness fvhich 
God has given him, whenever these means of happiness can bo 
rendered available, to the service of his master. It supposes that 
the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, 
intellectual and moral actions of as many other human beings as 
by purchase he can bring within his physical power ; and that 
one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the happi- 
ness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of 
promoting his own. Slavery thus violates the personal liberty 
of man as a physical, intellectual, and moral being. 

" It purports to give to the master a right to control the physical 
labor of the slave, not for the sake of the happiness of the slave, 
but for the sake of the happiness of the master. It subjects the 
amount of labor, and the kind of labor, and the remuneration 
for labor, entirely to the will of the one party, to the entire ex- 
clusion of the will of the other party. 

" But if this right in the master over the slave be conceded 
there are of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure 
its possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this 
condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental im- 
becility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his 
intellectual development, just as far as may be necessary to se- 
cure entire subjection. Thus, it supposes the slave to have no 
right to use his intellect for the production of his own happiness ; 
but, only to use it in such manner as may conduce to his master's 
profit. 

And, moreover, inasmuch as the acquisition of the knowledge 
of his duty to God could not be freely made without the acqui- 
K'tion of other knowledge, which might, if universally dififused, 
endanger the control of the master, slavery supposes the master 
to have the right to determine how much knowledge of his duty 
a slave shall obtain, the manner in which he shall obtain it, and 
the manner in which he shall discharge that duty after he shall 
have obtained a knowledge of it. It thus subjects the duty of 
man to God entirely to the will of man ; and this for the sake of 
pecuniary profit. It renders the eternal happiness of the one 
party subservient to the temporal happiness of the other. And 

12 



266 TESTIilOXY OF THE CHURCHES. 

this principle is commonly carried into effect in siavchoIdiTtg 
countries. 

If argument were necessary to show that such a system as thia 
must he at variance with the ordinance of God, it might be easily 
drawn from the effects which it produces both upon morals ans 
national wealth. 

Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. 
By presenting objects on whom passion ma}" be satiated without 
resistance and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, 
anger, crueltj", selfishness and licentiousness. By accustoming 
the sLave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, 
it tends to abolish in him all moral distir^ction ; and thus fosters 
in him lyings deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to 
yield himself up to minister to the appetites of his master. 

The effects of slavery on national uealih, may be easily seea 
from the following considerations : — 

Instead of imposing upon all the necessity of labor, it restricts 
the number of laborers^ that is of producers, within the smallest 
possible limit,, by rendering labor di&graceful. 

It takes from the laborers the natural stimulus to kbor, namcl; 
the desire in the individual of improving his condition • and sub- 
stitutes, in the place of it, that motive which is the least operor 
tive and the least constant, namely, the fear of punishment with^ 
out the consciousness of moral delinquency. 

It removes, as far as possible^ from both parties, the dispositioS/ 
and the motives to frugality. Neither the master learns frugality 
from the necessity of labor, nor the slave from the benefits which 
it confers. And here, while the one party wastes from ignora.nce 
of the laws of acquisition, and the other because he can have no 
motive to economy, capital must accumulate but slowly, if indeed 
it accumulate at all. 

No country, not of great fertility, can k/ng sustain a large slave 
population. Soils of more than ordinary fertility can not sustais 
it long, after the richness of the soil has been exhausted. ' Hence, 
slavery in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished 
many of our most valuable districts ; and, hence, it is continually 
migrating from the older settlements, to those new and untilled 
regions, where tl e accumulated r anure of centuries of vegetatioi* 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 267 

has formed a soil, whose productiveness may, for i, xvh le, sustain 
a system at variance with the laws of nature. !Many of our free 
and of our slaveholding States were peopled at about the same 
time. The slaveholding States had every advantage, both in soil 
and climate, over their neighbors. And yet the accumulation of 
capital has been gi^eatly in favor of the latter. If any one doubts 
whether this dificrence be owing to the use of slave labor, let 
him ask himself what would have been the condition of the slave- 
holding States, at this moment, if they had been inhabited, from 
the beginning, by an industrious yeomanry; each one holding his 
own land, and each one tilling it with the labor of his own hands. 

The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to 
slavery. They are, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and 
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do 
ye even so unto them. 

The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbor 
is every one ichom we may benefit. The obligation respects all 
things whatsoever. The precept, then, manifestl3^ extends to 
we??, as men, or me7i in every condition; and if to all things 
whatsoever, certainly to a thing so important as the right to per- 
sonal libert3\ 

Again. By this precept, it is made our du't}'- to cherish as 
tender and delicate a 'respect for the right which the meanest in- 
dividual posscses over the means of happiness bestowed upon him 
by God, as we cherish for our own right over our own means of 
happiness, or as we desire any other individual to cherish for it. 
New, were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could 
not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the pre- 
cept is absolutely subversive of the principle of slavery. That 
of the one is the entire equality of right ; that of the other, the 
entire absorption of the rights of one in tlie rights of the other. 

If any one doubts respecting the bearing of the Scripture pre- 
cept upon this case, a few plain questions may throw additional 
light upon the subject. For instance, — 

" Do the precepts and the spirit of the Gospel allow me to de- 
rive my support from a sj'stem which extorts lalor from m}- fel- 
low-men, without allowing them aiiv voice in the equivalent 
whicli they shal receive ; ind which can only be sustained by 



268 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHEO. 

keeping them in a state of mental degradation, aiid by shutting 
them out, in a great degree, from the means of salvation ? 

" Would the master be willing that another person should sub- 
ject him to slavery, for the same reasons, and on the same grounds, 
that he holds his slave in bondage ? 

*' Would the Gospel allow us, if it wert in our power, to reduce 
our fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery ? If the gospel be 
diametrically opposed to iha principle of slaver^^ it must be op- 
posed to the practice of slavery j and therefore, were the princi- 
ples of the gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist. 

" The very course which the gospel takes on this subject, seems 
to have been the only one that could have been taken, in order 
to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was de- 
signed, not for one race, or for one time, but for all ri^oes, and for 
all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for 
that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the impor- 
tant object of its Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part 
of the known world j so that, by its universal diffusion among 
all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and 
subdue the evil passions of men ; and thus, without violence, 
work a revolution in the whole mass of mankind. 

'' If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if 
it be at variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must 
be abandoned. If it be asked when, I ask again, when shall a 
man begin to cease doing wrong 1 Is not the answer, immedi- 
ately ? If a man is injuring us, do we ever doubt as to the time 
when he ought to cease ? There is then no doubt in respect to 
the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury upon others." 

Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the 
Baptist persuasion, says : — 

" I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anythingj tihan 
that slaveholding (except when the slave has forfeited his lib- 
erty by crimes against society) is wicked and inconsistent with 
Christian character. To me it is evident, that whoever would 
purchase ar innocent )lafk man to make him a slave, would 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 209 

with equal readiness purchase a white one for the same pupose 
could he do it with equal impunity, and no more disgrace." 

At a meetiDg of the General Committee of the Baptists 
of Virginia, in 1789, the following resolution wagj offered 
by Eld. John Leland, and adopted : — 

" Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights 
of nature, and inconsistent witli repubhcan government, and 
therefore we recommend it to our brethren to make use of every 
measure to extirpate this horrid evil from tlie land j and pray 
Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in 
their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the 
principles of good policy." 

METHODIST TESTIMONY. 

John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, 
says : — 

" Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers." 

Again, he says : — ■ 

" American Slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun j it con- 
etitutes the sum of all villanies." 

The learned Dr. Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous 
commentary . on the Scriptures, says : — 

" Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in hu- 
man flesh and blood ; or those who steal a person in order to 
sell him into bondage ; or those who buy such stolen men or 
women, no matter of what color, or what country; or the nations 
who legalize or connive at such traffic ; all these are men-steal- 
ers, and God classes them with the most flagitious of mortals." 

One of the rales laid down in the Methodist Discipline, 
as amended ir. 1784, was as f->llows : — 



270 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

" Every member of our Society who has slaves in his posses- 
Bion, shall, withiji twelve months after notice given to him by 
the assistant, legally execute and record an instrument, whereby 
he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession." 

Another rule was in these words : — " 

" No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into 
8«>2iety, or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with 
these rules concerning slaver3%" 

The answer to the question — " What shall be done with 
those who buy or sell slaves, or give them away" — is 
couched in the following language : — 

" They are immediately to be expelled, unless they buy tnem 
on purpose to free them." 

In 1185, the voice of this church was heard as follows : — 

" We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slave- 
ry, and shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and 
prudent means." 

In 1791, the Discipline contained the following whole- 
some paragraph : — 

"The preachers and other members of our Society are re 
quested to consider the subject of negro slavery, with deep 
attention, and that they impart to the General Conference, 
through the medium of the Yearly Conferences, or otherwise, 
any important thoughts on the subject, that the Conference may 
have full light, in order to take further steps towards eradica- 
ting this enormous evil from that part of the Church of God with 
which they are connected. The Annual Conferences are directed 
to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, 
to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws have 
been passed for that purpose. These addresses shall urge, in 
the most respectful but pointed manner, the necessity of a law 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHL'RCnES. 271 

Uti ['ne gra \\\-\\ cnianoipation of slaves. Proper committees shall 
be ;»pjM)Inte(l by tlie Annual Conference^?, out of the most respect- 
able of our friends, for conduo Jng the business ; and presiding 
elders, elders, deacons, and traveling preachers, shall procure as 
many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and give all 
the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the com- 
mittees, and to forward the blessed undertaking. Let this bo 
continued from year to year, till the desired end be accom- 
plished." 

CATHOLIC TESTIMONY. 

It has been only about twenty years since Pope Greg- 
ory XVI. immortalized himself by issuing the famous Bull 
against slavery, from which the following is an extract : — • 

*' Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the apostles, and 
acting, though by no merits of our own, as the vicegerent of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who, through his great merc}*, con- 
descended to make himself man, and to die for the redemption 
of the world, we regard as a duty devolving on our pastoral 
functions, that we endeavor to turn aside our faithful flocks en-' 
tirel}'" from the inhuman traffic in negroes, or any other human 
beings whatever. ♦**];□ progress of time, as the 
clouds of heathen superstition became gradually dispersed, cir- 
cumstances reached that point, that during several centuries 
there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of the 
Christian nations ; but with grief we are compelled to add, that 
there afterwards arose, even among the faithful, a race of men, 
who, basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid lucre, 
did not hesitate to reduce, in remote regions of the earth, In- 
dians, negroes, and other wretched beings, to the misery of sla- 
very ; or^ finding the trade established and augmented, to assist 
\he sliameful crime of others. Nor did many of the most glori 
CU3 of the Roman Pontiffs omit severely to reprove their con- 
duct, as injurious to their souls' health, and disgraceful to the 
Cliristiau name Among these may be especially quoted the 
bull of Paul III which bears the date of the 20th of May, 1537 



2T2 TESTIMONY OF THE CHUECHES. 

addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledc , and another 
still more comprehensive, by Urban YIII., dated the 22d of April, 
1C36, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in Portu- 
gal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to 
subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy, ex- 
change, or give them away, to separate them from their wives 
and children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring 
or transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive 
them of liberty, or retain them in slavery j also most severely 
castigating those who should presume or dare to afford council, 
aid, favor or assistance, under any pretext, or borrowed color, to 
those doing the aforesaid ; or should preacli or teach that it is 
lawful, or should otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, by 
any possible means, with the aforesaid. * * * Where- 
fore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace from the whole confines 
of Christianity, having summoned several of our venerable broth- 
ers, their Eminences the Cardinals, of the 11, R. Church, to our 
council, and. having maturely deliberated on the whole matter, 
pursuing the footsteps of our predecessors, admonished by our 
apostolical authority, and urgently invol^ in the Lord, all Chris- 
tians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to subject 
to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, 
negroes, or other classes of men, or be accessories to others, oi 
furnish them aid or assistance in so doing ; and on no account 
henceforth to exercise that inhuman trafSc by which negroes are 
reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or chat- 
tels, and are sold in defiance of all the laws of justice and human- 
ity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labors. We further 
reprobate, by our apostolical authority, all the above-described 
offences as utterly unworthy of the Christian name ; and by the 
same authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every in- 
dividual, whether ecclesiastical or laical, from presuming to de- 
fend tJ^at commerce in negro slaves under pretence or borrowed 
color, or to teach or publish in any manner, publicly or privately, 
things contrary to the admonitions which we have given in these 
letters. 

"And, inally, that these, our letters, may be rendered mbrc 
apparent to all, and that no person may allege any ignorance 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 2*13 

thereof we decree and order that it shall be published according 
to custom, and copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of 
St. Peter and of the Apostolic Chancel, ever}' and in like manner 
to the General Court of Mount Citatorio, and in the field of the 
Campus Florae and also through the city, by one of our horaldSj 
according to aforesaid custom. 

" Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria Major, under 
the seal of the fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1837, and 
in the ninth year of our pontificate. 

" Countersigned by Cardinal A. Larabruschini." 

We have already quoted the language of Pope Leo X, 
who says : — 

" Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry 
3ut against the State of slavery." 

The Abbe Raynal says : — 

" lie who supports slavery is the enemy of the human race. 
He divides it into two societies of legal assassins, the oppressors 
and the oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal 
of reason and justice those governments which tolerate this 
cruelty, or which even are not ashamed to make it the basis of 
their power." 

From the proceedings of a Massachusetts Anti-slavery 
Oonvention in 1855, we make the following extract : — 

" Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the 
Romish Church in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the 
Catholic Church is thoroughl}^ anti-slavery — as thoroughly as 
even his friend Foster." 

Thus manfully do men of pure hearts and noble minds, 

whether in Church or State, and without regard to sect or 

party, lift up their voices against the wicked and pernicious 

institution of humai. slavery. Thus they speak, and thus 

12* 



2t4 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHE3 

they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all ; it is only 
the voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that issues 
from them. The divine principle in man prompts him to 
speak and strike for Freedom ; the diabolical principle 
within him prompts him to speak and strike for slavery. 

From those churches which are now — ^as all churches 
ought to be, and will be, ^ve the world becomes Christian- 
ized — thoroughly imbued with the principles of freedom, 
we do not, as already intimated, deem it particularly ne- 
cessary to bring forward new arguments in opposition to 
slavery. If, however, the reader would be pleased to hear 
from the churches to which we chiefly allude — and, by the 
bye, he might hear from them with much profit to himself 
— ^we respectfully refer him to Henry Ward Beecher, 
George B. Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, 
E. H. Chapin, and H. W. Bellows, of the Noi th, and to M 
D. Conway, John G. Fee, James S. Davis, Daniel Wilson, 
and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these reverend gen- 
tlemen, ministers of different denominations, feel it their 
duty to preach against slavery, and, to their honor be it 
said, they do preach against it with unabated zeal and 
success. Our earnest prayer is, that Heaven may enable 
them, their cotemporaries and successors, to preach against 
it with such energy and effect, as will cause it to disap- 
pear Corevei from the soil of our Republic. 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 275 



CHAPTER VII 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 



EvKRY porjon who has read the Bible, and who has a 
ly.op^r undorBtanding of its leading moral precepts, feels, 
in his own conscience, that it is the only original and com- 
plete anti-slavery text-book. In a crude state of society— 
in a barbarous age— when men were in a manner destitute 
of wholesome laws, either human or divine, it is possible 
that a mild form of slavery may have been tolerated, and 
even regulated, as an institution clothed with the impor- 
tance of temporary recognition ; but the Deity never ap- 
proved it, and, for the very reason that it is impossible 
for him to do wrong, he never will, never can approve it. 
The worst system of servitude of which we have any ac- 
count in the Bible -and, by the way, it furnishes no 
account of anything so bad as slavery (the evil-one and 
his hot home alone excepted)— was far less rigorous and 
atrocious than that now established in the Southern States 
of this Confederacy. Even that system, however, the 
worst, which seems to have been practiced to a considera- 
ble extent by those venerable old fogies, Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, was one of the monstrous inventions of Satan 



276 BIBLE TESTIMONY. 

that God " winked'' at ; and, to the mind of the oiblical 
scholar, nothing can be more evident than that He deter- 
mined of old, that it should, in due time, be abolished. 
To say that the Bible sanctions slavery is to say that the 
sun loves darkness ; to say that one man was created to 
domineer over another is to call in question the justice, 
mercy, and goodnesa of God. 

We will now listen to a limited number of the 

PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

" Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhajbit- 
ants thereof." 

" Let the oppressed go free." 

" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

" Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the 
person of the mighty ; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy 
neighbor." 

"The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all 
night until the morning." 

" Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways." 

" Do justice to the afflicted and needy ; rid them out of the 
hand of the wicked." 

" Execute judgment and justice ; take away your exactions 
from my people, saith the Lord God." 

" Therefore thus saith the Lord ; ye have not hearkened unto 
me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every 
man to his neighbor : behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith 
the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine ; and 
I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the 
earth " 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 27 T 

'• lie that st^aleth a man. and sellcth him, or if he be found in 
his hand, he shall surely be put to death." 

" Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall 
cry, but shall not be heard." 

" He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker." 

" I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against 
the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that 
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, 
and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, 
saith the Lord of Hosts." 

" As the partridge setteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not j so 
he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the 
midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool." 

And now we will listen to a few selected 

PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

''Call no man master, neither be ye called masters." 

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to ycu 
do ye even so to them," 

" Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love ^ 
in honor preferring one another." 

" Do good to all men, as ye have opportunity." 

"St7-nd fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of 
bondage." 

"H thou mayest be made free, use it rather." 

" The laborer is worthy of his hire." 

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 

Some years ago a clerical lickspittle of the slave power 



2*78 BIBLE TESTIMONY. 

had the temerity to publish a hook or pamphlet entitled 
" Bible Defence of Slavery," which the Baltimore Sun, in 
the course of a caustic criticism, handled in the following 
manner : — 

" Bible defence of slavery ! There is no such thing as a Bible 
defence of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United 
States is a social institution, originating in the convenience and 
cupidity of our ancestors, existing by State laws, and recognized 
to a certain extent — for the recovery of slave property — by the 
Constitution. And nobody would pretend that, if it were inex- 
pedient and unprofitable for any man or any State to continue to 
hold slaves, they would be bound to do so on the ground of a 
" Bible defence" of it. Slavery is recorded in the Bible, and ap- 
proved, with many degrading characteristics. War is recorded 
in the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us the extreme 
of cruelty. But are slavery and war to endure for ever because 
we find them in the Bible ? or are they to cease at once and for 
ever because the Bible inculcates peace and brotherhood V 

Thus, in the last five chapters inclusive, have we intro- 
duced a mass of anti-slavery arguments, human and di- 
vine, that w^ill stand, irrefutable and convincing, as long 
as the earth itself shall continue to revolve in its orbit. 
Aside from unafiected truthfulness and candor, no merit 
is claimed for anything we have said on our own account. 
With the best of motives, and in the language of nature 
more than that of art, we have simply given utterance to 
the honest convictions of our heart — being impelled to it 
by a long-harbored and unmistakable sense of duty which 
grew stronger and deeper as the days passed away. 

If half the time which has been spent in collecting and 
arranging these testimonies had been occupied in the 
compositiDn of original matter, the weight of paper and 



BIBLE TESTIMOXV. 



219 



binding and the number of pages would have been much 
greater, but the vakie and the efibct of the contents would 
have been far less. From the first, our leading motive 
has been to convince our fellow-citizens of the South, non- 
Blaveholders and slaveholders, that slavery, whether con- 
sidered in all its bearings, or, setting aside the moral as- 
pect of the question, and looking at it in only a pecuniary 
point of view, is impolitic, unprofitable, and degrading ; 
how well, thus far, we have succeeded in our undertaking, 
time will, perhaps, fully disclose. 

In the words of a contemporaneous German writer, 
whose language we readily and heartily endorse, " It is 
the shame of our age that argument is needed against 
slavery." Taking things as they are, however, argument 
being needed, we have ofiered it ; and we have offered 
it from such sources as \A\\, in our honest opinion, con- 
found the devil and his incarnate confederates. 

These testimonies, culled from the accumulated wisdom 
of nearly six thousand centuries, beginning wnth the great 
and good men of our own time, and running back through 
distant ages to Saint Paul, Saint John, and Saint Luke, 
to Cicero, Plato, and Socrates, to Solomon, David, and 
Moses, and even to the Deity himself, are the pillars of 
strength and beauty upon which the popularity of our 
work will, in all probability, be principally based. If the 
ablest writers of the Old Testament ; if the eloquent pro- 
phets of old ; if tlie renowned philosophers of Greece and 
Rome ; if the heavenly-minded authors and compilers of 
the New Testament ; if the illustrious poets and prose- 
wi'itcrs, heroes, statesmen, sages of all nations, ancient 



280 ' BIBLE TESTIMONY. "^ 

and modern ; if God himself and the hosts of learned 
ministers whom he has commissioned to pioclaim his 
word — if all these are wrong, then v.-c art wrong ; on the 
other hand, however, if they are riglit, we are right ; for, 
in effect, we only repeat and endeavor to enforce their 
precepts. 

If we are in error, we desire to be corrected ; and, if it 
is not asking too much, we respectfully request the advo- 
cates of slavery to favor us with an expose of what they, 
in their one-sided view of things, conceive to be the ad- 
vantages of their favorite and peculiar institution. Such 
an expose, if skillfully executed, would doubtless be re- 
garded as the funniest novel of the times — a fit produc- 
tion, if not too immoral in its tendencies, to be incorpo- 
rated into the next edition of D'Israeli's curiosities of 
literature. 



FREE FIGURES AXD SLAVE 281 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

Under tins heading we propose to introdace the remain- 
der of the more important statistics of the Free and of the 
Slave States ; — especially those that relate to Commerce, 
Manufactures, Internal Improvements, Education and Re- 
ligion. Originally it was our intention to devote a 
separate chapter to each of the industrial and moral in- 
terests above-named : but other considerations have so 
greatly encroached on our space, that we are compelled to 
modify our design. To the thoughtful and discriminating 
reader, however, the chief statistics which follow will be 
none the less interesting for not being the subjects of an- 
notations. 

At present, all we ask of pro-slavery men, no matter in 
what part of the world they may reside, is to look these 
figures faixly in the face. We wish them to do it, in the 
first instance, not on the platforms of public debate, where 
the exercise of eloquence is too often characterized by 
violent passion and subterfuge, but in their own private 
apartments, where no eye save that of the All-seeing One 
will rest upon them, and where, in considering the rela- 
tions which they sustain to the past, the present, and the 



282 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

future, an opportunity will be afforded tliem of secoi'ing 
that most valuable of all possessions attainable on earth, 
a conscience void of offence toward God and man. 

Each separate table or particular compilation of statis- 
t'cs will afford food for at least an hour's profitable reflec- 
tion ; indeed, the more these figures are studied, and the 
bettei they are understood, the sooner will the author's 
object be accomplished, — the sooner will the genius of 
Tniversal Liberty d' -peJ the dark clouds of slavery. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



283 



TABLE NO. XXVI, 

TONrfAGE, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THE FRE."! STATES — 1355. 



Stales. 


Tonnage. 


Exports. 


Imports. 


California 


92,623 

137,170 

53,797 

3,698 

806,587 
970,727 

69,490 

30,330 

121,020 

1,404,221 

91,007 
397,768 

51,038 
6,915 

15,624 


88,224,066 
878,874 
547,053 

4,851,207 

28,190,925 

568.091 

1,523 

687 

113,731,238 

847,143 

6,274,338 

336,023 

2,895 ,4&S 

174,057 


85,951.379 


Connecticut 

Illinois 


030,826 
51,509 


Indiana 




Iowa 




JIaine 


2.927,443 


Massachusetts 

Michif^an 


45,113.774 
281,'379 


New Hampshire 

New Jersey 


17,786 
1,473 


New York 


101,776,511 


Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 


600,650 

15,300,935 

536,387 

591,593 


Wisconsin « . • . 


48,159 








4,252,615 


S167,520,693 


$-230,847,810 



TABLK NO. XXVII. 

.ONNAGE, EXPORTS AND lilPORTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1855. 



States. 


Tonnage. 


Exports. 


Imports. 


Alabama 


36,274 

19,186 

14,835 

29,505 

22,680 

204,149 

234,805 

2,475 

60,592 

60,077 

60,935 

8,404 

8,812 

92 788 


$14,270,585 

68,087 
1,403,594 
7,513,519 

55,367,962 
10,395,081 

433,818 
12,700,250 

910,901 
4,379,928 


8619,904 

5,821 

45,998 

273,716 


Arkansas 

Delaware 


Florida 

•jreorgia 


Kentucky 

Louisiana 


12,900,821 


Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 


7,788,949 
1,661 

243,085 
1,588,542 

262,563 
855 405 








855,517 


8107,480,088 


824,580,528 



284 



FREE FIGURES vND SLA^ jC. 



TABLE NO. XXVIII. 

PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE FREE STATES— 1850. 



States. 


"V'al. of Annual 
products 


Capital 
inveeted. 


Hands 
employed. 


California 


$12,862,522 
45,110,102 
17,236,073 
18,922,651 
3,551,783 
24,664,135 

151,137,145 
10,976,894 
23,164,503 
39,713,586 

237,597,249 
62,647,259 

155,044,910 

22,093,258 

8,570,920 

9,293,068 


81,006,197 

23,800,348 

6,385,387 

7,941,602 

1,292.875 

14,700,452 

83,357,642 

6,534,250 

18,242,114 

22,184,730 

99,904,405 

29,019,538 

94,473,810 

12,923,176 

5,001,377 

3,382,148 


3,964 


Connecticut , .. 

Illinois 


47,770 
12 065 


Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine - 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 


14,342 

1,707 

28,078 

165,933 

9 290 


New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 


27,092 

37,811 

199,349 

51,489 

146,766 

20,881 

8,445 

6,089 




S842,586,058 


S'430, 240,051 


780,576 



TABLK NO. XXIX. 

PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 

States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi. . . . 

Missouri 

North Carolina . 
South Carolina. 

Tennesse 

Texas. , 

Viroinia. .. . 



VaL of Annual 


Capital 


Handa 


products. 


invested. 


employed. 


S4.538,878 


S3,450,606 


4,936 


607,436 


324,065 


903 


4,649,296 


2,978,945 


3,888 


668,338 


547,060 


99} 


7,086,525 


5,460,483 


8,378 


24,588,483 


12,350,734 


21,385 


7,320,948 


5,318,074 


6,437 


32,477,702 


14,753,143 


30,124 


2,972,038 


1,833,420 


3,173 


23,749,265 


9,079,695 


16 850 


9,111,245 


7,252,225 


12,444 


7,063,513 


6,056,865 


7,009 


9,728,438 


6,975,279 


12,032 


1,165,538 


539,290 


1.066 


29,705,387 


18,109,993 


29,10? 



$165413,027 



)5,029,870 



161,733 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



285 



TABI.I-: NO. XXX. 



MILES OF CANALS 



AND RAILROADS IN 

185-4-1857. 



Statea. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersej'' 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Canals, ruiles, 
1S54. 



61 

100 
367 

50 
100 

11 
147 

989 
921 

936 



THE FREE STATES 



Railroads, 
miles, 1857. 

22 

600 

2,524 

1,806 

253 

442 

1,285 

600 

645 

472 

2,700 

2,809 

2,107 

85 

515 

629 



Cost of Rail- 
roads, 1S55. 



825,224,191 
55,663,056 
29,585,923 

2,300,000 
13,749,021 
59,167,781 
22,370,397 
15,860,949 
13,840,030 
111,882.503 
67,798,202 
91,657,675 

2,614,484 
17,998,835 

5,600,000 



3,682 



17,855 $538,313,647 



TABLE NO. XXXI. 

MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE SLATE STATES 

1854-1857. 



states. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia : . 



Canals, miles, 


Railroads, 


Cost of Rail 


ISo-L 


miles, 1857. 


roads, 1855. 


51 


484 


S3,986,208 


14 


120 


600,000 




86 


250,000 


28 


1,062 


17,034,802 


486 


306 


6,179,072 


101 


263 


1,731,000 


184 


597 


12,654,333 




410 


4,520,000 




189 


1,000,000 


13 


612 


6,847,213 


60 


706 


13,547,093 




508 


10,436,610 




57 


16,466,250 


181 


1,479 




1,11# 


6,859 


S95, 252,581 



286 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XXXIl. 

BANK CAPITAL IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES— 

1855. 



Free States. 



Slave States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

IMaine 

Massachusetts. . . 

jMichiojan 

New Hampshire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 
Rhode Island .... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



^15,597,891 
2,513,790 
7,281,93i 

7,301,252 

54,492,660 

980,416 

3.626,000 

5;314,885 

83,773,288 

7,166,581 

19,864,825 

17,511,162 

3,275,656 

1,400.000 



Total iS230, 100,340 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia , 

Kentucky 

Louisiana , 

Maryland , 

Mississippi 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina.. 
South Carolina., 

Tennessee 

Texas , 

Virginia 



S2,296,400 

1,393,175 

13,413,100 

10,369,717 

20,179,107 

10,411,874 

240,165 

1,215,398 

5.205.073 

16.603,253 

6,717,848 

14,033,833 



Total IS102,078,94G 



TABLK NO. XXXIII. 

MILITIA FORCE OF THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 1852. 



Free States. 



Slave Stat->3 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine... 

Massachusetts... 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. .. 
Rhode Island.. . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



51,649 

170,359 

63,918 

62,588 

119,690 

63,958 

32,151 

39,171 

265,293 

176,455 

276,070 

14,443 

23,915 

32 203 



Total 



1,381.845 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia , 

Kentucky 

Iiouisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas,, 

Virginia r 



Total 



76,662 
17,137 
0,229 
12,122 
57,312 
81,810 
43,823 
46,861 
36,081 
61,000 
79,448 
55,209 
71,252 
19,766 
125,128 



792,878 



TREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



28t 



TABLE NO. XXXIV. 

POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE FREE STATES — 1S55. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts . . 

Michijjjan 

New-Hampshire. 

New-Jersey 

New- York 

Ohio , 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



JBtainpa 


Total Fostage 


CostofTrana 


Bold. 


colle !tcd. 


the raailfl. 


S81,437 


S234,591 


$135,386 


79,284 


179,230 


81,462 


105,252 


279,887 


280,038 


60,578 


180,405 


190,480 


28,198 


82,420 


84,428 


60,165 


151,358 


82,213 


259,062 


532,184 


153,091 


49,763 


142,188 


148,204 


38,387. 


95,609 


46,631 


" 31,495 


109,697 


80,084 


542,498 


1,383,157 


481,410 


167,958 


452,643 


421,870 


217,293 


583.013 


251,833 


30,291 


58,624 


13,891 


36,314 


92,816 


64,437 


33,538 


112,903 


92,842 


Sl,719,513 


S4,670,725 


S2,608,295 



TABLi: NO. XXXV. 

POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE SLAVE STATED 1855. 



Statea. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland. ...... 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina, 
South Carolina. 
Tennessee ... . 

Texas 

Virgil ia 



Stamps 
sold. 



S44,514 
8,941 

7,298 
8,764 
73,880 
55,694 
60,778 
77,743 
31,182 
53,742 
34,235 
47,368 
48,377 
24,530 
96,799 

SC66,845 



Total Postage 
collected. 

S104,514 

30,664 

19,614 

19,275 

149,063 

130,067 

133,753 

191,485 

78,739 

139,652 

72,759 

91,600 

103,686 

70,436 

217,861 

$1,553,198 



Cost of Tranat 
the mails. 

226.816 
117,659 
9.243 
77,553 
216,003 
144,161 
133.810 
192,743 
170,785 
185,006 
148,249 
192,216 
116,091 
209,936 
245,592 

$2,885,953 



2S8 



FREK FIGURES AND SLAVK. 



TABI.K NO. XXXVI. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois , 

Indiana 

Iowa 

]\Iaine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Number. 

2 

1,656 

4,052 

4,822 

740 

4,042 

3,679 

2,714 

2,381 

1,473 

11,580 

11,601 

0,061 

416 

2,731 

1,423 

62,433 



Teachers. 



1,787 

4,248 

4,860 

828 

5,540 

4,443 

3,231 

3,013 

1,574 

13,965 

12,886 

10,024 

518 

4,173 

1,529 

72,021 



Tupils. 



49 

71,269 

125,725 

161,500 

29,556 

192,815 

176,475 

110,455 

75,643 

77,930 

675,221 

484,153 

413,706 

23,130 

93,457 

58,817 

2,709,901 



TABLE NO. XXXVIT. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina . 
South Carolina , 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



18.507 



Number. 


Teachers. 


Pupils. 


1,152 


1,195 


28,380 


353 


355 


8,493 


194 


214 


8,970 


69 


73 


1,878 


1,251 


1,265 


32,705 


2,234 


2,306 


71,429 


664 


822 


25,046 


898 


986 


33,111 


782 


820 


18 746 


1,570 


1,620 


51,754 


2,657 


2,730 


104,095 


724 


739 


17,838 


2,6S0 


2,819 


104,117 


349 


360 


7,946 


2,930 


2,997 


67,353 



19,307 



681,861 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



289 



TABI^K NO. XXXVIII. 

LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE FREE STATES 1&50. 



States; 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

fowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



14,911 



Number. 


Volumca, 


164 


165,318 


152 


62,486 


161 


68,403 


32 


5,790 


236 


121,969 


1,462 


684,015 


417 


107,943 


129 


85,759 


128 


80,885 


11,013 


1,760,820 


352 


186,826 


393 


363,400 


96 


104,342 


96 


64,641 


72 


21,020 



3,888,234 



TABLE NO. XXXIX. 

LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi..,. 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Number. 


Volume*. 


56 


20,623 


3 


420 


17 


17,950 


4 


2,660 


38 


31,788 


80 


79,466 


10 


26,800 


124 


125,042 


117 


21,737 


97 


75,056 


38 


29,592 


26 


107,472 


34 


22,896 


12 


4,230 


54 


88,462 



695 



13 



640,677 



290 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 



TABLE NO. XL. 

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISnED IN THE 

FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 


If umber. 


Copies Priuted 
annually. 


f^alifornia 


7 

46 

107 

107 

29 

49 

202 

58 

38 

61 

428 

261 

309 

19 

35 

46 


761 ,200 


Connecticut 

Illinois .- •• .... 


4,267,932 
5,102,276 


Indiana .... .... 


4,316.828 


Iowa «•• 


1,512,800 


!Maine 


4,203,064 


Massachusetts 

Michicran .... 


&4.820,564 
3,247,736 


New Hampshire. .... .... 


3,067,552 


New Jersey 


4,098,678 


New York 


115,385,473 


Ohio 

Pennsylvania 


30,473,407 
84,898,672 


Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 


2,756,950 
2,567,662 
2,665,487 








1,790 


334,146,281 



TABLE NO. XLT. 

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE 

SLAVE STATES 1850. - 



Statea. 


Number. 


Copies Printe<i 
annually. 


Alabama 


60 
9 
10 
10 
51 
62 
55 
68 
50 
61 
51 
46 
60 
34 
87 


2,662,741 


Arkansas 


877,000 


Delaware 


421.200 


Florida 

Geort^ia 


319,800 
4,070,868 


Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 


6,582,83» 
12,416,224 
19,612,724 


Mississippi 

Missouri ....... 


1,752,504 
&,195.560 


North Carolina 


2,020,564 


South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas .... 


7,145,930 
e,940,75O 
1,296,924 


Virginia.. .. ............ 


9,223,068 




704 


81,038,693 



fk/!:e figurks and slave. 



291 



TABLE NO. XLII. 

ILLITEAA'JE WHITE ADULTS IN THE FREE STATES 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Mas!-achusetts. . 

Miclii^an 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania... 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Native. 



2,201 

82G 

84,107 

67,275 

7,043 

1,999 

1,055 

4,903 

893 

8,370 

23,241 

51,968 

41,944 

981 

565 

1,459 



2^8,725 



Foreign. 

2,917 
4,013 
5,947 
3,265 
1,077 
4,148 

26,484 
3,009 
2,064 
5,878 

68,052 
9,062 

24,989 
2,359 
5,624 
4,902 

173,790 



1850. 

Total. 



5.118 

4,739 

40,054 

70,540 

8,120 

6,147 

27,539 

7.912 

2,957 

14,248 

91,293 

61,030 

66,928 

3,340 

6,189 

6,361 



422,515 



TABLK NO. XLIII. 

ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Floi'ida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina, 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Native. 



83,618 
16,792 
4,132 
3,564 
40,794 
64,340 
14,950 
17,364 
13,324 
34,420 
73,226 
15,580 
77,017 
8.037 
75,568 

493,02«1 



Foreign. 

139 

27 

404 

295 

406 

2,347 

6,271 

3,451 

81 

1,861 

340 

104 

505 

2,4^8 

1,137 

1^856 



Total. 



33,757 
16,819 
4 530 
3,859 
41.200 
66,687 
21,221 
20,815 
13,405 
36,281 
73,566 
15,684 
77.522 
10,525 
77,005 

512,882 



292 



FREE FIGURES AND 3LAVE. 



TABLE NO. XLIV. 



NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE 


FREE STATE 


3—1857. 


States. 


Senators. 


Rep. in lower 
House Cong. 

2 

4 

9 
11 

2 

6 
11 

4 

3 

6 
33 
21 
25 

2 

3 

3 


Electoral 
votes. 


California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 


2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
'2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 


4 

6 

11 


Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 


13 
4 
8 


Massachusetts 

Michigan 


13 
6 


New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 


6 

7 
35 


Ohio 


23 


Pennsylvania 


27 


Rhode Island 


4 


Vermont 


5 


Wisconsin 


6 




32 


144 


17G 



TABLK NO. XLV. 

NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE SLAVE STATES 1857. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virgil ia. . . . , . 



Senators. 



2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 

30 



Rep. in lower 
House Cong. 

7 

2 

1 

1 

8 
10 

4 

6 

6 

7 

8 

6 
10 

2 
13 

90 



Electoral 
yotes. 

9 

4 

3 

8 
10 
12 

6 

8 

7 

9 
10 

8 
12 

4 
15 

120 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 



29.^ 



TABLE NO. XLVI. 

POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE FREE STATES —1856. 



States. 


Republican. 
Fremont, 


American. 
Fillmore. 

35,113 

2,615 

37,444 

22,386 

9,180 

3,325 

19,626 

1,660 

422 

24,115 

124,601 

28,126 

82,175 

1,675 

545 

579 

393,590 


Democratic. 
Buebanan. 

51,925 

34,995 

105,348 

118,670 

36,170 

39,080 

39,240 

52,136 

32,789 

46,943 

195.878 

170,874 

230,710 

6,580 

10,569 

52,843 


Total 


California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 


20,339 

42,715 

96,189 

94,375 

43,954 

67,379 

108,190 

71,762 

38,345 

28,338 

276,907 

187,497 

147,510 

11,467 

39,561 

66,090 

1,340,618 


107,377 
80,325 
238,981 
235,431 
' 89,304 
109,784 


Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine • 


Massachusetts. . . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire,. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 


167,056 
125,558 
71,556 
99.396 
597,389 
886,497 


Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 


460,395 
19,722 
50,675 

119,512 




1,224,750 


2,958,958 



TABLE NO. XLVII. 

POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE SLAVE STATES 1856. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. .. 
South Carolina*.. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



No popular vote. 



Republican. 
Fremont. 



308 

314 

281 



291 



1.191 



American. 
Fillmore. 

28.552 
10.787 
6,175 
4,833 
42,228 
67,416 
20,709 
47,460 
24,195 
48,524 
36,886 

06,178 
15,244 
60,278 

479,465 



Democratic. 
Buchanan. 

46,739 
21,910 
8,004 
6,358 
56,578 
74,642 
22,164 
39,115 
35,446 
58,164 
48,246 

73,638 
28,757 
89,826 

609,587 



Total. 

75,291 
32,697 
14,487 
11,191 
98,806 

142,372 
42,873 
86,856 
59,641 

106 688 
85,132 

139,816 

44,001 

150,395 

1,090,2^ 



294 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XLVIII. 

VALUE OF CHURCHES IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES 

1850. 



Free States. \ 


Slave States. 


California 


8288,400; 
3,599,330 
1,532,305 
1,568,906 
235,412 
1,794,2091 

10,504,8881 

793,180: 

1,433,2661 

3,712,863i 

21,539,561 
5,860,059 

11,853,291 

1,293,600 

1,251,655 

512,552 


Alabama i . . 




Connecticut 


Arkansas 


Sl,244,741 
149,686 


Illinois 


Delaware 


Indiana 


Florida 


340,345 

192,600 
1,327,112 
2,295,353 
1,940,495 
3,974,116 

832,622 
1,730,135 

907,785 


Iowa 


Georo^ia 


Maine.., 

Massachusetts 

Michi"^an 


Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 


New Hampshire. . . 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio ,, 


Mississippi 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina... . 
South Carolina... . 

Tennessee 

Texas 


Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 


2,181,476 

1,246,951 

408,944 

2,902,220 


Vermont 


Virginia 


"Wisconsin 


Total 


Total 


$67,773,477 


S21,6'4,581 



TABLK NO. XLIX 

PATENTS ISSUED ON NEW INVENTIONS IN THE FREE AND IN 
THE SLAVE STATES 1856. 



Free States. 


Slave States. 


California 1 


13 
142 

93 

67 

14 

42 

331 

22 

43 

78 

592 

139 

267 

18 

35 

33 


Alabama 


11 


C onnccticut 


Arkansas 




Illinois 


Delaware 


8 


Indiana 


Florida 

Georgia 


3 


Iowa 


13 


Maine 


Kentucky 

Louisiana 


26 


Masf^achusetts. .. . 


30 


Michigan 


Maryland 


49 


New Hampshire.. . 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 


Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina.... 
South Carolina.... 

Tennessee ,. 

Texas 


8 

82 

9 

10 


Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 


23 
4 


Vermont 


Vircrinia 


42 


Wisca isin 


Total 




Total 


1,929 


268 



FREE FIGURES AXD SLAVE. 



295 



TABI.E NO. L. 

BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE FREE STATES 1855. 



States. 



Californi.o. 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts ... 

Michigan 

New-Hampshire. 

New- Jersey 

New- York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



ContribH. for 


Contribu. for 


tlio Bible Cause. 


the Tract Cause. 


Sl,900 


$ 5 


24,528 


15,872 


28,403 


3,786 


6,755 


1,491 


4,216 


2,005 . 


5,449 


2,981 


43,444 


11,492 


5,554 


1,114 


6,271 


1,288 


15,475 


3,546 


123,386 


61,233 


25,758 


9,576 


25,360 


12,121 


2,669 


2,121 


5,709 


2,867 


4,790 


474 



S319,667 



S131,972 



TABLK NO. LI. 

BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE SLAVE STATES 1855. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky ,. , . 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina, 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virainia 



Contribu. for 


Contribu. for 


the Bible Cause. 


tlicTiaot Cause. 


S3,351 


4,77 


2,950 


110 


1,037 


163 


1,957 


5 


4,532 


1,468 


5,956 


1,366 


1,810 


1,099 


8,909 


5,365 


1,067 


267 


4,711 


936 


6,197 


1,419 


3,984 


3 222 


8,383 


1,807 


3,985 


127 


9,296 


6,894 



S68,125 



S24,725 



20G 



FREE FIGUEES ANI> SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. lill. 

missi:nar.y cause and colonization* cause in tub 
free states 1855-1856. 



6ta».e8. 



California 

Connecticut . ... 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michijzan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania . . . 
Khode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Contributions for 


Contributions for 


Miss'y purposes, 1855. 


Coloniza. pur., 1856 


S 192 


$ 1 


48,044 


9,233 


10,040 


64S 


4,705 


34 


1,750 


3 


13,929 


1,719 


128,505 


1,422 


4,935 


4 


11,963 


1,130 


19,946 


3,261 


172,115 


24,371 


19,890 


2,687 


43,412 


4,287 


9,440 


2,125 


11,094 


304 


2,216 


806 



8502,174 



S51,930 



tabIuP: no. liii. 

MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION* CAUSE IN THE 
SLAVE STATES 1855-1856. 



St.atcs. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi .... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennesse3 

Texas 

Xii dnif 



Contributions for 
Miss'y purposes, 1855. 


Contributions for 
Coloniza. pur., 185G. 


S5,963 
455 


Sl,113 

1 


1,003 
340 


250 
13 


9,846 

6,953 

334 


5,323 

4,436 

871 


20,677 
4,957 
2,712 


40G 

2,177 

313 


6,010 

15,248 

4,971 


969 

129 

1,611 


349 


6 


22,106 


10,000 



8101,934 I $-27,618 

For eolonizing free blacks in Liberia. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



297 



TABLE NO. LIV. 

DEATHS IN THE FREE STATES — 185C.* 



States. 


Number of 
deaths. 


Rjitio to the Numbet 
living. 


California 


5,781 

11,619 

12,728 

2,044 

7,545 

19,414 

4,520 

4,268 

6,467 

44,339 

28,949 

28,318 

2,241 

3,132 

2,884 




Connecticut 

Illinois 


61.1 ;5 

73.28 


Indiana 


77.65 


Iowa 


94.03 


Maine 


77.29 


Massachusetts 

Micliifran 


51.23 
88.19 


^^e^v Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 


74.49 
75.70 
69.85 


Ohio 

Pennsylvania 


68.41 
81.63 


Rhode Island 


65.83 


Vermont 

Wisconsin 


100.13 

105.82 




184,249 


72.91 



TABLE NO. LV. 

DEATHS IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850.* 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgria 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virgin •> 



Number of 


Ratio to the Numbei 


deaths. 


living. 


9,084 


84.94 


2,987 


70.18 


1,209 


75.71 


933 


93.67 


9,920 


91.93 


15,206 


64.00 


11,948 


42.85 


9,594 


60.77 


8,711 


69.93 


12,211 


55.81 


10.207 


85.12 


7,997 


83.59 


11,759 


85.34 


3,046 


69.79 


19,053 


74.61 



1.33,865 1 7182 

♦ For an explanation of lliie Table see the next six pagea. 



<J98 



FREE FIGUi<ES AND SLAVE. 



TABT^E NO. LVI. 

FREE WHITE MALE PERSONS OVER FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE 

ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER OUT-DOOR LABOR IN THE 
SLAVE-STATES 1850. 



Slates. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky . . . . , 

Louisiana 

^Maryland 

Mississippi . . .. 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina, 

Tennessee , 

Texas 

Virginia 



No. engaged 


No. engaged 




in 


in other out- 


Total 


Agriculture. 


door labor. 




67,742 


7,229 


74,971 


28,436 


5,596 


34,032 


6,225 


4,184 


10,409 


6,472 


2,598 


8,070 


82,107 


11.054 


93,161 


110,119 


26,308 


136,427 


11,524 


13,827 


25,351 


24,672 


17,146 


41,818 


50,028 


5,823 


55,851 


64,292 


19,900 


84,192 


76,338 


21.876 


98,214 


37,612 


6,991 


44,603 


115,844 


16,795 


132,<39 


24,987 


22,713 


47,700 


97,654 


33,928 


131,582 


803,052 


215,968 


1,019,020 



Too hot iu tlic South, and too unhealthy there — white 
men "can't stand it" — negroes only can endure the heat 
of Southern climes I How often are our ears insulted 
with such wickedly false assertions as these I In what 
degree of latitude — pray tell us — in what degree of lati- 
tude do the rays of the sun become too calorific for white 
men ? Certainly in no part of the United States, for in 
the extreme South we find a very large number of non- 
slaveholding whites over the age of fifteen, who derive 
their entire support from manual labor in the open fields. 
The sun, that bugbear of slaveholding demagogues, shone 
on more than one mil ion of free white laborers — mostly 
agriculturists — ir iliO ^lavc States in 1850, exclusive of 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 299 

tnose engaged in commerce, trade, manufactures, the me- 
chanic arts, and mining. Yet, notwithstanding a'il these 
instances of exposure to his wrath, we have had no intel- 
ligence whatever of a single case of coit'p de so-kil. Ala- 
bama is not too hot ; sixty-seven thousand white sons of 
toil till her soil. Mississippi is not too hot ; fifty-five thou- 
sand free white laborers are hopeful devotees of her out- 
door pursuits. Texas is not too hot ; forty-seven thousand 
free white persons, males, over the ago of fifteen, daily 
perform their rural vocations amidst her unsheltered air. 

It is stated on good authority that, in January, 1856, 
native ice, three inches thick, was found in Galveston 
Bay ; we have seen it ten inches thick in North Carolina, 
with the mercury in the thermometer at two degrees be- 
low zero. In January, 1857, while the snow was from 
three io fivs feet deep in many parts of North Carolina, 
the thsrmomete?; indicated a degree of coldness seldom 
exceeded in any State in the Union — tliirteen degrees be- 
low zero. The truth is, instead of its being too hot in the 
South for white meD, it is too cold for negroes ; and we 
long to see the day arriTe when the latter shall have en- 
tirely receded from their uncongenial homes in America, 
and given full and undivided place to the former. 

Too hot in the South for white men I It is not too hot 
for white women. Time and again,. in different counties 
in North Carolina, have we seen the poor white v/ife of 
the poor white husband, following him in the harvest-field 
from morning till night, binding up the grain as it fell 
from his cradle. In the immediate neighborhood from 
vhich wc hail, there are not less than thirty young 



300 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

women, non-slaveholding whites, between the ages of fil- 
teen ai-d twenty-five — some of whom are so well knowD 
to us that we could call them by name — who labor in the 
fields every summer ; two of them in particular, near 
neighbors to our mother, are in the habit of hiring them- 
selves out during harvest-time, the very hottest season of 
the year, to bind wheat and oats — each of them keeping 
up with the reaper ; and this for the paltry consideration 
of twenty-five cents per day. 

That any respectable man — any man with a heart or a 
soul in his composition — can look upon these poor toiling 
white women without feeling indignant at that accursed 
system of slavery which has entailed on them the miseries 
of poverty, ignorance, and degradation, we shall not do 
ourself the violence to believe. If they and their hus- 
bands, and their sons and daughters, and brothers and 
sisters, are not righted in some of the more important par- 
ticulars in which they have been wronged, the fault shall 
lie at other doors than our own. In their behalf, chiefly, 
have we written and compiled this work ; and until our 
object shall have been accomplished, or until life shall 
have been extinguished, there shall be no abatement in 
our efforts to aid them in regaining the natural and inali- 
enable prerogatives out of which they have been so infam- 
. ously swindled. TVe want to see no more plowing, or 
lioeing, or raking, or grain-binding, by white women in 
the Southern States ; employment in cotton-mills and other 
factories would be far more profitable and congenial to 
them, and this they shall have within a shori period aftei 
slavery shall have been abolished. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 301 



Too hot in the South for white men I What is the tes- 
timony of relialle Southrons themselves ? Says Cassius 
M. Clay, of Kentucky :— 

«In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring men- 
the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is in- 
tensified by the proximity of the red brick ^^^J^^^^S^' ^^^^^ 
white men, and they are in the fall enjoyment of health. But 
how about Cotton? I am informed by a friend of mme-him- 
self a slaveholder, and therefore good authority-that in North- 
western Texas, among the German settlements, who true to their 
national instincts, will not employ the labor of a slave-thcy pro- 
duce more cotton to the acre, and of a better quality, and selling 
at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a pound higher than 
that produced by slave labor." 

Says Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina:— 

" The steady heat of our summers is not so prostrating as the 
Bhort, but frequent and sudden, bursts of Northern summers." 

In an extract which may be found in our second chap- 
ter, and to which we respectfully refer the reader, it will 
be seen that this same South Carolinian, speaking of " not 
less than fifty thousand" non-slaveholding whites, says— 
" most of these now follow agricultural pursuits." 

Says Dr. Cartwright of New Orleans :— 

" Here in New Orleans, the larger part of the drudgery-work 
requiring exposure to the sun, as railroad-making, street-paving, 
dray-driving, ditching and building, is performed by white peo- 
ple." 

To the statistical tables which show the number of 
deaths in the free and in the slave States in 1850, we 
would dire ^.t special attention. Those persons, particu- 



302 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

larly the propogandists of negro slavery, who, heretofore, 
have been so dreadfully exercised on account of what they 
have been pleased to term " the insalubrity of Southern 
climes," will there find something to allay their fearful 
apprehensions. A critical examination of said tables will 
disclose the fact that, in proportion to population, deaths 
occur more frequently in Massachusetts than in any South- 
ern State except Louisiana j more frequently in New York 
than in any of the Southern States, except Maryland, Mis- 
souri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas ; more frequently 
in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in 
either Georgia, Florida, or Alabama. Leaving Wisconsin 
and Louisiana out of the account, and then comparing the 
bills of mortality in the remaining Northern States, with 
those in the remaining Southern States, we find the difier- 
cnce decidedly in favor of the latter ; for, according to 
this calculation, while the ratio of deaths is as only one to 
74.60 of the living population in the Southern States, it is 
as one to 12.39 in the Northern. 
Says Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile :— 

" Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter are said to be 
the elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet 
the testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower 
portion of the Mississippi River; is too strong to be doubted, — 
not only the river itself but also the numerous bayous which me- 
ander through Louisiana. Here is a perfectly flat alluvial coun- 
try, covering several hundred miles, interspersed with intermina- 
ble lakes, lagunes and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. 
Cartwrightj one of the most acute observers of the day, that this 
country is exempt from miasmatic disorders, arid is extremely 
healthy. His assertion has been confirmed "^o me by hundreds 
of witnesses, and wc know from our own observation, that tho 
population present a robust and healthy appearance. ' 



/"REE FIGURES AND SLAV::. 303 

But the besi part is yet to come. In spite of all the 
blatant assertions of the oligarchy, that the climate of the 
South was arranged expressly for the negroes, and that 
the negroes were created expressly to inhabit it as the 
healthful servitors of other men, a carefully kept register 
of all the deaths that occurred in Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, for the space of six years, shows that, even in that 
locality which is generally regarded as so unhealthy, the 
annual mortality was much greater among the blacks, in 
proportion to population, than among the whites. Dr. Nott 
himself shall state the facts. He says :— 

'• The average mortality for the last six years in Charleston 
for all ages is 1 in 51, including all classes. Blacks alone 1 in 
44 ; whites alone, 1 in 58 — a very remarkable result, certainly. 
This mortality is perhaps not an unfair test, as the population 
during the last six years has been undisturbed by emigration and 
acclimated in a greater proportion than at any former period." 

Numerous other authorities might be cited in proof of 
the general healthiness of the climate south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. Of 127 remarkable cases of American lon- 
gevity, published in a recent edition of Blake's Biographi- 
cal Dictionary, 6S deceased centenarians are credited to 
the Southern States, and 59 to the Northern — the list being 
headed with Betsey Trantham, of Tennessee — a white wo- 
man, who died in 1834, at the extraordinarily advanced age 
of 154 rears 



804 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. LVII. 

NATIVES OF THE SLAVE STATES IN THE FREE STATES, AND NATIVES 
OF THE FREE STATES IN THE SLAVE STAFIOS. 1850, 



I 



States. 


Natives of ihe 
Slave States. 


States. 


Natives of the 
Free States. 


California 

flnnnppt.init. 


24,055 

1,390 

144,809 

176,581 

31,392 

458 

2,980 

3,634 

215 

4,110 

12,625 

152,319 

47,180 

982 

140 

6,353 


Alabama 

Arkansas ..*...•.. . 


4,947 
7 965 


Illinois . . •••••.. 


Delaware 


6,996 


Indiana • . 


Florida 


1,718 


Iowa 


Georgia 


4,249 


Maine 


Kentucky , 

Louisiana 


31,340 


Massachusetts 


14,567 


Michigan 


Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 


23,815 


New-Hampshire 

New-Jersey 

New-York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 


4,517 
55,061 
2,167 
2,427 
6,571 
9,982 
28,999 


North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Tennesee 

Texas 

Virginia 


Wisconsin 












609,223 


205,924 



This last table, compiled from the 116th page of the 
Compendium of the Seventh Census, shows, in a most lucid 
and startling manner, how negroes, slavery and slave- 
holders are driving the native non-slaveholding whites 
away from their homes, and keeping at a distance other 
decent people. From the South the tide of emigration still 
flows in a westerly and north-westerly direction, and it 
will continue to do so until slavery is abolished. The fol- 
lowing remarks, which we extract from an editorial article 
that appeared in the Memphis (Tenn.) Bulletin near ihe 
close of the year 1856, are worth considering in this con- 
nection : — 



" We have never before observed so large a number of immi- 



FREE FIGURES AND SI^VE. 306 

grants going westward as arc crossing the river at this point 
daily, the twc ^erry boats — sometimes three — going crowded from 
early morn mi.il the boats cease making their trips at night. It 
is no uncommon sight to see from twenty to forty wagons en- 
camped on the biufif for the night, notwithstanding there has 
been a steady stream going across the river all day, and yet the 
)ry is, still they come." 

About the same time the Cassville (Geo.) Standard 
spoke with surprise of the multitude of emigrants crowd 
ing the streets of that town bound for the far West. 

Prof. B. S. Hedrick, late of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 
says : — 

" Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have 
left the State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the 
time I have stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the 
parting hand to those whose faces I was never to look upon 
again. They were going to seek homes in the free West, know- 
ing, as they did, that free and slave labor could not both exist 
and prosper in the same community. If any one thinks that I 
speak without knowledge, let him refer to the last census. He 
will there find that in 1850 there were fifty-eight thousand native 
North Carolinians living in the free States of the West — thirty- 
threc-thousand in Indiana alone. There were, at the same time, 
one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians living in the free 
States. Now, if these people were so much in love with the ' in- 
stitution,' why did they not remain where they could enjoy its 
blessings ? 

" From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I be- 
lieve that the majority of them who will go to Kansas during 
the next five years, would prefer that it should be a free State. 
I am sure that if I were to go Lhere I should vote to exclude 
slavery." 

For daring to have political opinions of his own, and 
because he did rot deem it his duty to conceal the fac^ 



30G 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



that he loved liberty better than slavery, the gallant au- 
thor of the extract above quoted was peremptorily dis- 
missed from his post of analytical and agricultural chem- 
ist in the University of North Carolina, ignominiously 
subjected to the indignities of a mob, and then savagely 
driven beyond the borders of his native State. His vil- 
lainous persecutors, if not called to settle their accounts 
in another world within the next ten years, will probably 
survive to repent of the enormity of their pro-slavery 
folly. 

TABLE NO. LVIII. 

VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400 PER HEAD. 1850.* 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

I\Iissouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Viroinia 



Value of the Slaves 
at $400 per head. 

S137,137.G00 

18,840,000 

016,000 

15,724,000 

152.672,800 
84,392,400 
97.923,600 
30,147,200 

123,951,200 
34,968,^00 

115,419,200 

153,993,600 
95,783,600 
23,264,400 

189,011,200 



Val. of Real and Per. 
Estate, less the val. of 
slaves at $400 p. head. 

$•81,066,732 

21,001,025 

17,939,863 

7,474,734 

182,752,914 

217,236.056 

136,075,164 

183.070.164 

105.000,000 

102,278,907 

111,381,272 

134,264,094 

111,671,104 

32,097,940 

202,634,638 



Sl,280,145,600 i S1,G55,945,137 



Tables 34 and 35 show that, on account of the pitiable 
poverty and ignorance of slavery, the mails were trans- 
ported throughout the Southern States, during the year 



♦ It is intended that this Table shall be considered in connection with Tables 
XX md XXI, on page 80. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



301 



1855, at aa extra cost to the General Government of more 
than six hundred thousand dollars I In the free States, 
postages were received to the amount of more than two 
millions of dollars over and above the cost of transporta- 
tion. 

To Dr. G. Bailey, editor of the National Era, Washington 
city, D. C, we are indebted for the following useful and 
interesting statistics, to which some of our readers will 
doubtless have frequent occasion to refer :— 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Appointed. 

March 4, 1789 

« 3, 1797 
March 4. 1797 

'« 3; 1801 
March 4, 1801 

" 3, 1809 
March 4, 1809 

«' 3. 1817 
March 4', 1817 

« 3, 1825 
March 4, 1825 

*• 3, 1829 
March 4, 1829 

" 3, 1837 
March 4, 1837 

" 3, 1841 
March 4, 1841 

« 3, 1845 
March 4, 1845 

" 3 1849 
March 4' 1849 

" 3, 1853 
March 4, 1853 

'• 3, 1857 
March 4, 1857 

" 3, ISGl 



George Washington, Virginia, 

John Adams, Massachusetts. 

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. 

James Madison, Virginia. 

James Monroe, Virginia, 
i John Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 

Andrew Jackson, Tennessee. 

Martin Van Buren, New York, 

William II. Harrison. Ohio. 

James K. Polk, Tennessee. 

Zachary Taylor, Louisiana. 

Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire. 
> James Buchanan, Pennsylvania. 



At the close of the term for which Mr. Buchanan is elected. 



308 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

it will have been seventy-two 3'^ears since the organization of tne 
present Government. 

In that period, there have been eighteen elections for Presi- 
dent, the candidates chosen in twelve of them being Southern 
men and slaveholders, in six of them Northern men and non- 
slaveholders. 

No Northern man has ever been re-elected, but five Southern 
men have been thus honored. 

Gen. Harrison, of Ohio, died one month after his inauguration. 
Gen. Taylor, of Louisiana, about four months after his inaugura- 
tion. In the former case, John Tyler, of Virginia, became act- 
ing President, in the latter, Millard Fillmore, of New York. 

Of the seventy-two years, closing with Mr. Buchanan's term, 
should he live it out, Southern men and slaveholders have occu- 
pied the Presidential chair forty-eight years and three months, 
or a little more than two-thirds of the time. 

THE SUPREME COURT. 

The judicial districts are organized so as to give five judges 
to the slave States, and four to the free, although the population, 
wealth, and business of the latter are far in advance of those of 
the former. The arrangement afibrds, however, an excuse for 
constituting the Supreme Court, with a majority of judges fr:in 
the slaveholding States. 

MEMBERS. 

Chief Justice — R. B. Taney, Maryland. 
Associate Justice — J. M. Wayne, Georgia. 

" " John Catron, Tennessee. 

" " P. V. Daniel, Virginia, 

" " John A. Campbell, Alabama. 

** " John McLean, Ohio. 

« " S. Nelson, NeiD York. 

** " R. C. Grier, Pennsylvania. 

" " B. R. Curtis, Massachicsetts, 

Reporter — B. C. Howard, Maryland. 
Clerk— \^ T. Carroll, J). C. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 309 

SECRETARIES OP STATE. 

rhe highest office in the Cabinet is that of Secretary of State, 
who has under his charge the foreign relations of the country. 
Since the year 1789, there have been twenty-two appointments 
to the office-fourtcen from slave States, eight from free. Or 
counting by years, the post has been filled by Southern men and 
^aveholders very nearly forty years out of sixty-seven, as follows . 

Appointed. 

Sept. 26, 1789, Thomas Jefferson, Virgiria. 
Jan. 2, 1794, E. Randolph. Virginia. 
Dec. 10, 1795, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. 
May is' 1800, J. Marshall, Virginia. 
March 5, 1801, James Madison, Virginia. 
March 6, 1800, R. Smith, Maryland. 
April 2, 1811, James Monroe, Virginia. 
Feb. 28, 1815, " 

March 5, 1815, J. Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 
March 7, 1825, Henry Clay, Kentucky. 
March 6, 1829, Martin Van Buren, New York. 

May 24, 1831, E. Livingston, Louisiana. 

May 29, 1833, Louis McLane, Delaware. 

June 27, 1834, J. Forsyth, Georgia. 

March 5, 1841, Daniel Webster, Massachusetts, 

July 24, 1843, A. P. Upshur, Virginia. 

March G, 1844, J. C. Calhoun, South Carolina. 

March 5, 1845, James Buchanan, Fennsyhania. 

March 7, 1849, J. M. Clayton, Delaware. 

July 20, 1850. Daniel Webster, MassoxiMisetts. 

Dec. 9, 1851^ E. Everett, Massachusetts. 
March 5, 1853 W. L. Marcy, New York. 

PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OP THE SENATE. 

^ Bce the year 1809, every President pro tern, of thvj Senate of 
the United States has been a Southern man and slaveholder, with 
the exception of Samuel L. Southard, of New Jersey, who held 
the office for a very short time, and Mr. Bright, of lndiana,who has 
held t for on« or tw sessions, we believe, having been elected, 



310 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVF 



however, as a known adherent of the slave interest, be. eved to 
be interested in slave " property." 

SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



April, 1789 
March 3, 1791 
Oct. 24. 1791 
March 2. 1793 
Dec. 2, 1793 
March 3. 1795 
Dec. 7, 1795 
March 3, 1797 
May 15, 1797 
March 3, 1799 
Dec. 2, 1799 
March 3, 1801 
Dec. 7, 1801 
March 3,1807 
Oct. 26, 1807 
March 3, 1811 
March 4, 1811 
Jan. 19, 1814 
Jan. 19, 1814 
March 2, 1815 
Dec. 4, 1815 
Nov. 13, 1820 
Nov. 15, 1820 
March 3, 1821 
Dec. 3, 1821 
March 3, 1823 
Dec. 1, 1823 
March 3, 1825 
Dec. 5, 1825 
March 3. 1827 
Dec. 3, 1827 
June 2, 1834 
June 2, 1834 
March 3, 1835 
Dec. 7, 1835 
March 3, 1839 
Dec. 16, 1839 
March 3, 1841 
May 31, 1841 
March 3, 1843 



F. A. Muhlenberg, Tenn. 

J. Trumbull, Connecticut. 

F. A. Muhlenberg, Penn. 

Jonathan Dayton, New Jersey. 
<( (( it 

Theodore Sedgwick, Mass. 
Nathaniel Macon, N. Car. 
J. B. Yamum, Massacliiisetis. 
Henry Clay, Kentucky. 
Langdon Chcves, S. Car. 
Henry Clay, Kentucky. 
^ J. W. Taylor, New-Yorh 
P. B. Barbour, Virginia. 
Henry Clay, Kentucky. 
J. W. Taylor, New-Yorh 

> A. Stevenson, Virginia. 
John Bell, Tennessee. 
James K. Polk, Tennessee. 
R. 11. T. Hunter, Virginia. 

> J D-hn White. Tennessee. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 311 



^fj' l^fL I J- W. Jones, Firginia. 



March 3. 1845 

Marci'3,m- | J- ^- Davis, /«d,ana. 

March's, ^851 ( 1^°-^" C^^", G.or^^a 

March 3,''l853 I L'™ »<>? '3. ■«^<""«^^J'- 
Dec. 1, 1853 
March 3, 1855 

Ma'd' Wis- I ^^^*''^"'^' P- I5»°'''' ^^^'- 

POSTMASTERS-GENERAL. 
Appointed — 

Sept. 26, 1789, S. Osgood, Massachusetts. 
Aug. 12, 1791, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. 
Feb. 25, 1795, J. Habersham, Georgia. 
Nov. 28, 1801, G. Granger, Connecticut. 
March 17, 1814, R.. J. Meigs, Ohio. 
June 25, 1823, John McLean, Ohio. 
March 9, 1829, W. T. Barry, Kentucky. 
May 1, 1835, A. Kendall, Kentucky. 
May 18, 1840, J. IM. Niles, Connecticut. 
March G, 1841, F. Granger, Nexo York. 
Sept, 13, 1841, C. A. WicklifFe, Kentucky. 
March 5, 1845, C. Johnson, Tennessee. 
March 7, 1849, J. Collamer, Vermont. 
July 20, 1850, N. K. Hall, New York. 
Aug. 31, 1852, S. D. Hubbard, Connecticut. 
March 5, 1853, J. Campbell, Pennsijlvania. 
Sectionalism does not seem to have had much to do with this 
D2partment or with that of the Interior, created in 1848 -'49, 



312 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 

SECRETARIES OF THE IXTEMOB. 

Appointed — 

March 7, 1849, T. Ewing, Ohio, 

July 20, 1850, J. A. Pearce, Maryland. 

Aug. 15, 1850, T. M. T. McKennon, PewisylvanUL 

Sept. 12, 1850, A. H. H. Stuart, Virginia. 

March 5, 1853, II. McClelland, Michigaiu 

ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. 

Appointed— 

Sept. 26, 1789, E. Randolph, Virginia. 
June 27, 1794, W. Bradford, Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 10, 1795, C. Lee, Virginia. 
Feb. 20, 1801, T. Parsons, Massachusetts. 
March 5, 1800, L. Lincoln, Massachusetts. 
March 2, 1805, R. Smith, Maryland. 
Dec. 23, 1805, J. Breckinridge, Kentucky. 
Jan. 20, 1807, C. A. Rodney, Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 11, 1811, W. Pinkney, Maryland. 
Feb. 10, 1814, R. Rush, Pennsylvania. 
Nov. 13, 1817, W. Wirt, Virginia. 
March 9, 1829, J. McPhcrson Berrien, Georgia. 
July 20, 1831, Roger B. Taney, Maryland. 
Nov. 15, 1833, B. F. Butler, New York. 
July 7, 1838, F. Grundy, Tennessee. 
Jan. 10, 1840, H. D. Gilpin, Pennsylvania. 
March 5, 1841, J. J. Crittenden, Kentucky. 
Sept. 13,1841, H. S. Legare, South Carolina. 
July 1, 1843, John Nelson, Marylaml. 
March 5, 1845, J. Y. Mason, Virginia. 
Oct. 17, 1846, N. Clifford, Maine. 
June 21, 1848, Isaac Toucey, Connecticut. 
March 7, 1849, R, Johnson, Maryland. 
July 20, 1850, J. J. Crittenden, Kentucky. 
March 5 1853, C. Cushing, Massachusetts. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 313 

SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY. 

The post of Secretary of the Treasury, although one o. great 
importance, requires financial abilities of a high order, which art 
more frequently found in the North than in the South, and affords 
little opportunity for influencing general politics, or the questions 
springing out of Slaver3\ We need not therefore be surprised 
tc Irarn that Northern men have been allowed to discharge its 
diM ns some forty-eight years out of sixty-seven, as follows: 

Appointed — 

Sept. 11, 1780, A. Hamilton, New York, 
Feb. 3, 1795, 0. Wolcott, Connecticut. 
Dec. 31, 1800, S. Dexter, Massachusetts. 
May 14, 1801, A. Gallatin, Pennsylvania. 
Feb. 9, 1814; G. W. Campbell, Tennessee. 
Oct. 6, 1814, A. J. Dallas, Pcnnsylvvania. 
Oct. 22, 1816, W. II. Crawford, Georgia. 
March 7, 1825, R. Rush, Pennsylvania. 
March 6, 1829, S. D. Ingham, Pennsylvania. 
Aug. 8, 1831, L. McLane, Delaware. 
May 29, 1833, W. J. Duane, Pennsylvania. 
Sept. 23, 1833, Roger B. Taney, Maryland. 
June 27,1834, L. "Woodbury, New Hampshire. 
March 5, 1841, Thomas Ewing, Ohio. 
Sept. 13, 1841, W. Forward, Pennsylvania. 
l^.Iarch 3, 1843, J. 0. Spencer, New York. 
Jane 15, 1844, G. M. Bibb, Kentucky. 
jNIarch 5, 1845, R. J. Walker, Mississippi, 
March 7, 1849, W. M. Meredith, Pennsylvania. 
June 20, 1850, Thomas Corwin, Ohio. 
March 5, 1843, James Guthrie, Kentucky. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR AND THE NAVY. 

The Slaveholders since March 8th, 1841, a period of marly 
tiixteen years, have taken almost exclusive supervision of the 
Navv. Northern men having occupied the Secretaryship only two 

14 






314 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

i,'ears. Nor has any Nortlicrn man been Secretary of War since 
1849. Considering that nearly all the shipping belongs to the 
free States, which also supply the seamen, it docs seem remarka- 
ble that Slaveholders should have monopolized for the last six- 
teen years the control of the Navy. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR. 
Jkppointed— 

Sept. 12, 1789, Henry Knox, Massachusetts. 

Jan. 2, 1795, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. § 

Jan. 27, 1796, J. McIIenry, Maryland. | 

May 7, 1800, J. Marshall Virginia. 

May 13. 1800, S. Dexter. MassachicscMs. 

Feb. 3, 1801, R. Griswold, Connecticut. 

March 5, 1801, II Dearborn, Mas^s.ichusetis. 

March 7, 1802, W. Eustis, Massachusetts. 

Jan. 13, 1813, J. Armstrong, New York. 

Sept. 27, 1814, James Monroe, Virginia. 

March 3, 1815, W. H. Crawford, Gjorgia. 

April 7, 1817, G. Graham, Virginia. 

March 5, 1817, J. Shelby, Kentucky. 

Oct, 8, 1817, J. C. Calhoun, South Carolina 

March 7, 1825, J. Barbour, Virginia. 

]\Iay 26, 1828, P. B. Porter, Pennsylvania. . ^ 

March 9, 1829, J. H. Eaton, Tennessee. ' « ^ 

Auc^. 1, 1831, Lewis Cass, Ohio. 1 V^--^ ^^-^Jr'^^^ * 

March 3, 1837, B. F. Butler, jVew; York. ^ 

March 7, 1837, J. R. Poinsett, South Carolina 

March 5, 1841, James Bell, Tennessee. 

Sept. 13, 1841, John McLean, Ohio. 

Oct. 12, 1841, J. C. Spencer, New York. 

March 8, 1843, J. \Y. Porter, Pennsylvania. 

Feb. 15, 1844, W. Wilkins, Pennsylvania. 

March 5, 1845, William L. Marcy, New York 

March 7, 1849, G. W. Crawford, Georgia. 

July 20, 1850, E. Bates, Missouri. 

Aug. 15, 1850, C. JNL Conrad, Louisiana. 

March 5, 853. Jefferson Davis Mi^isissippi. 



FREE FIGURES AXD SLAVE. 315 



SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY. 



Appointed — 

May 3, 1708, G. Cabot, M.issachusetts. 
May 21, 1798, B. Stoddart, Massachusetts. 
July 15, 1801, R. Smith, Maryland. 
May 3, 1805, J. Crowninshield, Massachusetts, 
March 7, 1809, P. Hamilton, South Carolina. 
Jan. 12, 1813, W. Jones, Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 17, 1814, B. W. Crowninshield, Massachusetts, 
Nov. 9, 1818, Smith Thompson, New York. 
Sept. 1, 1823, John Kogers, Massachusetts. 
Sept. IG, 1823, S. L. Southard, New Jersey. 
U-ATch 9, 1819, John Branch, Norlh Carolina. 
May 23, 1831, L. Woodbury, New Hampshire. 
June 30, 1834, M. Dickerson, New Jersey. 
June 20, 1838, J. K. Paulding, New York. 
March 5, 1841, G. F. Badger, North Carolina. 
Sept. 13, 1841, A. P. Upshur, Virginia. 
July 24, 1843, D. Ilenshaw, Massachusetts. 
Feb. 12, 1844, T. W. Gilmer, Virginia. 
March 14, 1844, James Y. Mason, Virginia. 
March 10, 1845, G. Bancroft, Massachusetts. 
Sept. 9, 1846, James Y. Mason, Virginia. 
March 7, 1849, W. B. Preston, Virginia. 
July 20, 1850, W. A. Graham, N. Carolina. 
July 22, 1852, J. P. Kennedy, Maryland. 
March 3, 1853, J. C. Dobbin, N. Carolina. 

RECAPITULATIOX. > 

Presideficy.—Sonthevn men and Slaveholders, 48 ve ira 3 
months ; Northern men, 23 years 9 months. 

Pro. Tent. Presidency oj the Senate.— S'mco 1809, held by 
Southern men and Slaveholders, except for three cr four sesoions 
by Northern men. 

Speakership of the House.— Filled by Southern men and Slavo- 
huldors forty-t/iroe 3'ears, Northern men, twenty-five. 



OlO FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

Supreme Court. — A majority of the Judges, including '!hi«,'f 
Justice, Southern men and S!ayehol<lers. 

Secretaryship of State. — Filled by Sout>iCrn men atid Slave- 
holders forty years. Northern, twenty-seven. 

Attorney Generalship. — Filled by Southern men and Slave- 
holders forty-two years, Northern men, twenty-five. 

War and Navy. — Secretaryship of the Navy, Southern men and 
Slaveholders, the last sixteen years, with an interval of two 
years. 

William Henry Hurlbut, of South Carolina, a gentle- 
man of enviable literary attainments, and one from whom 
we may expect a continuation of good service in the emi- 
nently holy crusade now going on against slavery and 
the devil, furnished not long since, to the Edinhurgh Re- 
view, in the course of a long and highly interesting article, 
the following summary of oligarchal usurpations — show- 
ing that shaveholders have occupied the principal posts 
of the Government nearly two-thirds of the time : — 

Presidents - - - - - 

Judges of the Supreme Court 
Attorneys -General - - - - 
Presidents of the Senate 
Speakers of the House - - - 
Foreign Ministers _ - - 

As a matter of general interest, and as showing that, 
while there have been but 11 non-slaveholders directly bc- 
fcie the people as candidates for the Presidency, there 
have been at least 16 slaveholders who were willing to 
serve their country in the capacity of chief magistrate, 
the follow jjig tabb may be here introduced v — 



11 out of 


16 


17 out of 


28 


14 out of 


19 


61 out of 


77 


21 out of 


33 


80 out of 134 



FREE KIGURK3 AND SLAVE. 317 

RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIOXi IN THE UNITED STATES 

VR')M 779G TO 1856. 

Year. Name of Candidate. Elcct'l vcUi 

,-fj. ^ John Adams - - - 71 

^ ' •^^' > Thomas Jederson - - - 68 

1 0AA S Thomas Jclfcrson - - • 73 

l^^O) John Adams . - - 64 



ey 



1840^ 



1844 



1852 



162 
14 



1 QOzi S 'Ihomas Jelfcrson 

^""^^ Charles C. Pinckn„ 

, Q,-,.^ ^ James Madison - - - 128 

^^^* } Charles C. Pinckney - - 45 

1Q1 -) 5 '-'^'^"^^'^ ■^^'^'^'^'^'^ - - - 122 

^^^'■^l I)e Witt Clinton - - - 89 

ioi,v^ James Monroe - - - - 183 

/ Rut us Kuis; - - - - o^ 



-^,j^,, ^ J:iincs Monroe - - - - 218 

'"^' } No opposition but one vote - 

f Andrew Jackson* - - - 99 

,goj j John Q. Adams - - - 84 

^^^'^] W. II. Crawford - - - 41 

[ Henry Ciay . - - 3 



,Q(,Q 1 Andrew Jackson _ - - 178 

^^-^^ I John Q. Adams - - - 83 

f Andrew Jackson - - - 219 

,QooJ IlenrvClav ... 49 

^^^''] John'Flovd - - - - 11 

[William \Virt . - - J 

f Martin Van Buren - - .- 170 

1 William II. Harrison - - 73 

1836 <j Hu-hL. White - - - 26 

I Willie P. Mannjum - - - 11 

t Daniel Webster - - - 14 

William II. Harrison - - 234 

i Martin Van Buren _ - - 60 

James K. Polk - - - 370 

Henrv Clay ... - 105 

•lor - - - 163 



10)0 W^^^^;^'!!!'^ Taylor - - - 163 

^^>^ ) Lewis Cass - - - - 127 

Franklin Pierce _ - - 254 

General Wintteld Scott - 42 

C James Buchanan - - - 174 

1856 J John C. Fremont - - 114 

I Millard Fillmore - - - 8 

• No choif^e l>y tlio people ; Jul n Q. Adaius elected ly the IIousc of Ri'irestD 
'.ative.*. 



318 FREE FliJURES AND SLAVE. 

AID FOR KANSAS. 

As a sort of accon:ipaniDient to tables, 50, 51, 52 and 53, 
we will here introduce a few items which will more fully 
illustrate the liberality of Freedom and the niggard! inesB 
of Slavery. 

From an editorial article that appeared in the Rich- 
luond (Va.,) Dispatch, in July, 1856, bewailing the close- 
fistedness of slavery, we make the following extract : — 

" Gerrit Smith, tlie Abolitionist, has just pledged himself to 
give fpl,500 a month for the next twelve months to aid in estab- 
lishing Freedom in Kansas. Be gave, but a short time since, at 
the Kansas relief meeting in Albany, S3,0()0. Prior to that, he 
had sent about §1,000 to the Boston Emigrant Committee. Out 
of his oN\m. funds, he subsequently equipped a Madison county 
company, of one hundred picked men, and paid their expenses 
to Kansas. At Syracuse he subscribc-'d ^10,000 for Abolition 
purposes, so that his entire contributions amount to at least 
{^■40,000." 

An Eastern paper says : — 

" The sura of .^500 was contributed at a meeting at New Bed- 
ford on ^Monday evening, to make Kansas free. The following 
sums have been contributed for the same purpose: $^2,000 in 
Taunton : .^COO iuBaynham: !$800 in Clinton: S300 in Danbury, 
Ct. In Wisconsin, .^2,500 at Janesville : §500 at Dal ton : §500 
at the Women's Aid Meeting in Chicago : §2,000 in Rockford, III." 

A telegraphic dispatch, dated Boston, January 2, 1857, 

iriforras us that — 

" The Secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee acknowledges 
the receipt of §42,678." 

Ex'dusive of the amounts above, the readers of the New- 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 319 " 

York I'ribune have contributed about $30, 300 for the pur- 
pose of securing Kansas to Freedom ; and, with the same 
object ill view, other individuals and societies have, from 
time to time, made large contributions, of which wc have 
failed to keep a memorandum. The legislature of Ver- 
mont has appropriated $20,000 ; and other free State 
legislatures are prepared to appropriate millions, if neces- 
sary. Free men have determined that Kansas shall be 
free, and free it soon shall bo, and ever so remain. Har- 
moniously the work proceeds. 

Now let us see how slavery has rewarded the poor, ig- 
norant, deluded, and degraded mortals — swaggering lick- 
spittles — who have labored so hard to gain for it " a local 
habitation and a name" in the disputed territory. One D. 
B. Atchison, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Bor- 
der Ruffians, shall tell us all about it. Over date of Octo- 
ber 13th, 1856, he says : 

"Up to this moment, from all the States except IMissourij we 
have only received the following sums, and through the following 
persons : — 

A. W. Jones, Houston, Miss., .... ^152 

H. D. Clayton, Eufala, Ala., 500 

Capt. Deedrick, South Carolina, . . . 500 

^1,152." 

On this subject, further comment is unnecessary. 

Numerous other contrasts, equally disproportionate 
might be drawn between the vigor and munificence o: 
freedom and the impotence and stinginess of slavery. W 
will, however, in addition to the above, advert to only . 
single instance. During the latter part of the summer o 



OZU FREE Ift^CRES AND SLAVE. 

1855, the citizens of the niggervilles of Ncifolk and Ports- 
mouth, in Virginia, were sorely plagiied with yellow fever. 
Many of them fell victims to the disease, and most of those 
who survived, and who were not too unwell to travel, left 
their homes, horror-stricken and dejected. To the horror 
of mankind in general, and to the glory of freemen in par- 
ticular, contributions in money, provisions, clothing, and 
other valuable supplies, poured in from all parts of the 
country, for the relief of the sufferers. Portsmouth alone, 
according to the report of her relief association, received 
$42,547 in cash from the free States, and only $12,182 in 
cash from all the slave States, exclusive of Virginia, within 
whose borders the malady prevailed. Including Virginia, 
the sum total of all the slave State contributions amounted 
to only $33,398. Well did the Richmond Examiner remark 
at the time — " we fear that generosity of Virginians is but 
a figure of speech." Slavery I thy name is shame I 

In connection with tables 44 and 45 on page 292, it will 
be well to examine the following statistics of Congressional 
representation, which we transcribe from Reynold's Polit- 
ical Map of the United States : — 

UNITED STATES SENATE. 

16 free States, with a white population of 13.238,670, have 32 
Senators. 

15 slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have 30 
Sena* ^rs. 

Sc that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same pol- 
.tioal privileges in the U. S. Senate as is given to 200.215 sbne 
{ :-opagandists, 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 321 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

The free States have a total of 144 members. 

The slave States have a total of 90 members. 

One free State riepresentative represents 91,935 \k.ah: men 
iii(J women. 

One slave State Representative represents G8,725 white men 
■. i)(l women. 

Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over free 
(lorn of oO votes in the House of Representatives. 

CUSTOM-HOUSE RECEIPTS. 1854. 

Free States, $;60,010,489 

Slave States, 5,136,9G9 

Balance in favor of the Free States, S54,873,520 

A contrast quite distinguishable ! 

That the apologists of slavery cannot excuse the shame 
and the shabbiness of themselves and their country, as we 
have frequently heard them attempt to do, by falsely as- 
serting that the North has enjoyed over the South the ad- 
vantages of priority of settlement, will fully appear from 
the folhjwing table : — 

free states. 

1614. New-York first settled by the Dutch. 
1G20. Massachusetts settled by the Puritans. 
1G23. New-Hampshire settled b}^ the Puritans. 
1G24. New-Jersey settled b}' the Dutch. 
IG35. Connecticut settled by the Puritans. 
1G3G. Rliode Island settled by Roger Williams. 
1G82, Pennsylvania settled by William Penn. 
1791. Vermont admitted into the Union. 
1802. Ohio admitted into the Union. 
1816. Indiana admitted into the Union. 

14* 



HS2 FREE FIGUUI'IS AXI) SLAVZ 

1818. Illinois admitted into the Un:on. 
1820. Maine admitted into the Union. 
1836. Michigan admitted into the Union. 
1846. Iowa admitted into the Union. 
1848. "Wisconsin admitted into the Union. 
1850. California admitted into the Union. 

SLAVE STATES. 

1607. Yirg jia first settled by the English. 
1627. Delaware settled by the Swedes and Fins- 
1635. Maryland settled by Irish Catht)lics. 
1650. North Carolina settled bj- the English. 
1670. South Carolin'a settled by the Huguenots. 
1733. Georgia settled by Gen. Oglethorpe. 
1782. Kentucky admitted into the Union. 
1796. Tennessee admitted into the Union. 
1811. Louisiana admitted into the Union. 
1817. Mississippi admitted into the Union. 
1810. Alabama admitted into the Union. 
1821. Missouri admitted into the Union. 
1836. Arkansas admitted into the Union. 

1845. Florida admitted into the Union. 

1846. Texas ad'mitted into the Union. 

In the course of an exceedingly interesting article on 
the early settlements in America, R. K. Browne, formerly 
editor and proprietor of the San Francisco Evening Journal, 
says : — 

" Many people seem to think that the Pilgrim Fathers were 
the first who settled upon our shores, and therefore that they 
ought to be entitled, in a particular manner, to our remembrance 
and esteem. 

This is not the case, and we herewith present to our readers a 
list of settlements nade in the present United States, prior to 
Uiat of Plyii^outh • 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. S23 

1564. A Colony of French Protestants under Ribaull settled 
m Florida. 

15G5. St. Augustine* founded by Pedro Melendez. 

1584. Sir "Walter Raleigh obtains a patent and sends two ves- 
sels to the American coast, which receives the name of Virginia. 

1C07. The first effectual settlement made at Jamestown, Va., 
by the London Company. 

1014. A fort erected by the Dutch upon the site of New- York. 

1615. Fort Orange built near the site of Albany, N. Y. 

1019. The first General Assembly called in Virginia. 

1020. The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock." 

FRKEDOil AXD SLAVERY AT THE FAIR. 
WHAT FREEDOM DID. 

At ail Agricultural Fair held at Watertown, in the State 
of Nevv-Y^ork, on the 2d day of October, 1856, twoliundred 
and twenty preniiiiins, ranging from three to fifty dollars 
each, were awarded to vsuccessful con^petitors — the aggre- 
gate amount of said premiums being $2,396, or an average 
of $10.89 each. From the proceedings of the Awarding 
Committee we make the following extracts : — 

Best Tlorse Colt, 

Best Filly, 

Best Brood Mare, 

Best Bull, 

Best Ileifer, 

Best Cow, 

Best Stall-fed Beef, 

Best sample Wheat, 

Best sample Flaxseed, 

Best sample Timothy Seed 
(Highest) Best Team of Oxen, 
(Lowest) Best sample Sweet Corn, 

Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, - - - ^214 00 
An a-erage of .$17.83 each. 

* The oldest town in the United States. 



George Parish, - 


^25.00 


J. Staplin, - - - 


20.00 


A. Blunt, - - - 


25.00 


AYm. Johnson, 


25.00 


A. M. Rogers, - 


20.00 


C. Baker, - - - 


25.00 


J. W. Taylor, - 


10.00 


TYm. Ottley, - • 


5.00 


IL AYeir, - - - 


3.00 


E. S. Ilayward - 


3.00 


Hiram Converse. 


50.00 


L. Marshall, - - 


3.00 



324 FREE FIGURES AXD SLAVE. 

WHAT SLAVERY DID, 

At the Rowan County Agricultural Fair, held at Mineral 
Springs, in North Carolina, on the 13th day of November, 
1 856, thirty premiums, ranging from twenty-five cents to 
two dollars each, were awarded to successful competitors 
— the aggregate amount of said premiums being $42, or 
an average of $1.40 each. From the proceedings of the 
A warding Committee we make the following extracts : — 





Best Horse Colt, 


T. A. Burke, - 


- ^2.0C 




Best Fill}^, 


James Cowan, - 


- 2.00 




Best Brood Mare 


M. W. Goodman, 


- 2.00 




Best Bull, 


J. F. McCorkle,- 


- 2.0C 




Best Heifer, 


J. F. McCorkle, 


- 2.00 




Best Cow, 


T. A. Burke, - - 


- 2.00 




Best Stall-fed Beef, 


S. D. Rankin, - 


- 1.00 




Best Sample "Wheat, 


M. W. Goodman, 


- 50 




Best lot Beets, 


J. J. Summerell, 


25 




Best lot Turnips, 


Thomas Barber, - 


25 


(Highest) 


Best pair Match Horses 


R. W. Griffith, - 


- 2.00 


(Lowest) 


Best lot Cabbage, 


Thomas Hyde 


- 25 



Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, $10.25 

An average of $1.36 each. 

Besides the two hundred and twenty premiums, amount- 
ing in the aggregate to $2,396, freedom granted several 
diplomas and silver medals ; besides the thirty premiums 
amounting in the aggregate to $42, slavery granted none 
— nothing. While examining these figures, it should be 
recollected that agriculture is the peculiar province of the 
slave States. If commerce or manufactures had been the 
subject of the fair, the result might have shown even a 
greater disproportion in favor of freedom, and yet thci-e 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 325 

would ha%e been some excuse for slavery, for it makes no 
pretensions to either the one or the other ; but as agricul- 
ture was the subject, slavery can have no excuse what- 
ever, but must bear all the shame of its niggardly and re- 
volting impotence ; this it must do for the reason that 
agriculture is its special and almost only pursuit. 

The Reports of the Comptrollers of the States of New 
York md North Carolina, for the year 1856, are now be- 
fore U5. From each report we have gleaned a single item, 
which, when^compared, the one with the other, speaks 
volumes in f\ivor of freedom and against slavery. AVe 
refer to the average value per acre of lands in the two 
States ; let slavocrats read, reflect, and repent. 

In 1S5G, there were assessed for taxation in the 
State of 

NEW YORK, 

Acres of land .... 30,080,000 

Valued at . . . . 81,112,133,136 

Average value per acre . . ^ S36.97 

In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the 
State of 

NORTH CAROLINA, 

Acres of land .... 32,450,560 

Valued at . . . . $08,800,636 

Average value per acre . . $"3.06 

It is difficult for us to make any remarks on the official 
facts above. Our indignation is struck almost dumb at 
this astounding and revolting display of the awful wreck 
that slavery is leaving behind it in the South. We will 
however, go into a calculation for the purpose of ascer 



020 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

taining as nearly as possible, in this one particular, how 
much North Carolina has lost by the retention of slavery. 
As we have already seen, the average value per acre of 
land in the State of New York is $36.97 ; in North Caro- 
lina it is only $3.06 ; why is it so much less, or even any 
less, in the latter than in the former ? The answer is, 
slavery. In soil, in climate, in minerals, in water-power 
for manufactural purposes, and in area of territory. North 
Carolina has the advantage of New York, and, with the 
exception of slavery, no plausible reason can possibly be 
assigned why land should not be at hast as valuable in the 
valley of the Yadkin as it is along the banks of the 
Genesee. 

The difference between $36.9t and $3.06 is $33.91, 
which, multiplied by the whole number of acres of land in 
North Carolina, will show, in this one particular, the enor- 
mous loss that Freedom has sustained on account of Slav- 
ery in the Old North State. Thus : — 

32,450,560 acres a $33,91 $1,100,398,489. 

Let it be indelibly impressed on the mind, however, 
that this amount, large as it is, is only a moity of the 
sum that it has cost to maintain slavery in North Carolina. 
From time to time, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of 
dollars have left the State, either in search of profitable, 
permanent investment abroad, or in the shape of profits to 
Northern merchants and manufactures, who have b( come 
the moneyed aristocracy of the country by supply iig to 
the South such articles of necessity, utility, and adorn- 
ment, as would have been produced at home but for the 
pernicious presenve of the peculiar institution. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 327 

A reward of Eleven Hundred Millions of Dollars .s of- 
fered for the conversion of the lands of North Carolina 
into free soil. The lands themselves, desolate and impov- 
erished under the fatal foot of slavery, offer the reward. 
Dow, then, can it be made to appear that the abolition of 
slavery in North Carolina, and, indeed, throughout all tlie 
Southern States — for slavery is exceedinj^ly inimical to 
them all — is not demanded by every .consideration of 
justice, prudence, and good sense ? In 1850, the total 
value of all the slaves of the State, at the rate of four hun- 
dred dollars per head, amounted to less than one hundred 
and sixteen millions of dollars. Is the sum of one hun- 
dred and sixteen millions of dollars more desirable than 
the sum of eleven hundred millions of dollars? When a 
man has land for sale, does he reject thirty-six dollars per 
acre and take three ? Non-slaveholding whites I look 
well to your interests I Many of you have lands ; com- 
paratively speaking, you have nothing else. Abolish sla- 
very, and you will enhance the value of every league, 
your own and your neighbors', from three to thirty-six dol- 
lars per acre. Your little tract containing two hundred 
acres, now valued at the pitiful sum of only six hundred 
dollars, will then be worth seven thousand. Your chil- 
li ren, now deprived of even the meagre advantages of 
common schools, will then reap the benefits of a collegiate 
education. Your rivers and smaller streams, now wast- 
ing their waters in idleness, will then turn the wheels of 
multitudinous mills. Your bays and harbors, now un- 
known to commerce, will then swarm with ships from 



328 VnKy- Kli^l'RKS ASU SLAVK 

ovory ciilij^htnnocl (iiiarti.T (jf the j^lobo. Noii-slavcholJ- 
iiig vvhiU^rt 1 look well to your interests I 

Would the shiveholders of North Carolina lose anytliin^ 
by the abolition of slavery ? Let us sec. Accordinp^ to 
their own estimate, their slaves arc worth, in round nuin- 
l^crs, say, one hundred and twenty millions of dollars. 
There are in the State twenty-eight thousand slaveholders, 
ownin-j^, it may be safely assumed, an average of at least 
liv(^ liuiulrcd aeres of land each — fourteen millions of acres 
in all. This imiiilx'r of acres, multiplicul by thirty-thre(; dol- 
huH aiid niiH'ty-onc; cents, the diflercnco in vahie betwecMi 
free soil and slave soil, makes the enormous sum of four 
hundred and seventy-four millions of dollars — showing 
that, by the abolition of slavery, the slaveholders them- 
selves would realize a net profit of not less than threi; 
hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars 1 \ 

Compensation to slaveholders for the negroes now in their 
possession I The idea is preposterous. The suggestion is 
ciiiiilnal. The demand is unjust, wicked, monstrous, damn- 
able. Shall we pat the bloodhounds of slavery for the sake 
of doing them a favor 'i* Shall we fee the curs of slavery in 
order to make them rich at our expense ? Shall we pay the 
whelps of slavery f(n' the privilege of convcTting them into 
decent, honest, upright men ? No, never I The non-slavehul- 
ders expect to gain, and will gain, something by the abolition 
of slav(My ; but slaveholders themselves will, by far, be the 
greater gainers ; for, in proportion to population, they own 
much larger and more fertile tracts of land, and will, as a 
mailer of course, receive th(! lion's share of the increase 
in t!ie ^'abie ol not only real estate, bul also of other gen- 



FREE FIGURES AXD SL.U'E. 329 

nine property, of wliicli they are likewise the principal 
owners. How ridiculously absurd, therefore, is the ohjeo 
lion, that, if we liberate the slaves, we ruin the masters ! 
Not long since, a gentleman in Baltimore, a native of Ma- 
ryland, remarked in our presence that he was an aboli- 
tionist because he felt that it was right and proper to be 
one ; " but," inquired he, " are there not, in some of tho 
States, many widows and orphans who would bo left 
in destitute circumstances, if their negroes were taken 
from them ?" In answer to the question, we replied that 
slavery had already reduced thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of non-slavcholding widows and orphans to the low- 
est depths of poverty and ignorance, and that we did not 
believe one slaveholding widow and three orphans were 
of more, or even of as much consequence as five non? 
slaveholding widows and fifteen orphans. " You are 
right," exclaimed the gentleman, " I had not viewed tho 
subject in that light before ; I perceive you go in for the 
greatest good to the greatest number." Emancipate the 
negroes, and the ex-slaveholding widow would still retain 
her lands and tenements, which, in consequence of being 
surroundnd by the magic influences of libert}^ would soon 
render h-cr far more wealtliy and infinitely more respect- 
able, than she could possibly ever become while traTicking 
in human flesh. 

The fact is, every slave in the South costs the State in 
which he resides at least three times as much as he, in the 
whole course of his life, is worth to his master. Slavery 
benefits no one but its immediate, individual owners, and 
them only in a pecuniary point of view, and at tlie sacri- 



S30 FliEE FIGURES AND SI,AVE. 

fice of the dearest rights and interests of the whole masa 
of non-slaveholders, white and black. Even the masters 
themselves, as we have already shown, would be far bet- 
ter off without it than with it. To all classes of society 
the institution is a curse ; an especial curse is it to those 
who own it not. Non-slaveboldinp: whites I look well to 
vour interests 1 



JOMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 331 



CHAPIER IX. 

COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCR. 

Our theme is a city — a great Southern importing, ex 
porting, and manufacturing city, to be located at some 
point or port on the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia or Vir- 
ginia, where we can carry on active commerce, buy, sell, 
fabricate, receive the profits which accrue from the ex- 
change of our own commodities, open facilities for direct 
communication with foreign countries, and establish ah 
those collateral sources of wealth, utility, and adornment, 
which are the usual concomitants of a metropolis, and 
which add so very materially to the interest and import- 
ance of a nation. Without a city of this kind, the South 
can never develop her commercial resources nor attain tn 
that eminent position to which those vast resources w(juld 
Dtherwise exalt her. According to calculations based upoi 
reasonable estimates, it is owing to the lack of a great 
commercial city in the South, that we are now annually 
drained of more than One Hundred and Twenty Millions 
of Dollars 1 We should, however, take into consideration 
the negative loss as well as the positive. Especially 
should we think of the influx of emigrants, of the visits of 
strangers and cosmopolites, of the patronage to hotels and 



332 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN OMMERCR. 

public halls, uf the profits of travel and transportati(jn. <^f 
the emoluments ol" foreign and domestic trade, and of nu- 
merous other advantages which have their origin exclu- 
sively- in wealthy, enterprising, and densely populated 
cities. 

Nothing is more evident than the fact, that our people 
have never entertained a proper opinion of the importance 
of home cities. Blindly, and greatly to our own injury, 
we have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars towards 
the erection of mammoth cities at the North, while our 
own magnificent bays and harbors have been most shame- 
fully disregarded and neglected. Now, instead of carr}^- 
ing all our money to New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, and 
Cincinnati, suppose we had kept it on the south side of 
Mason and Dixon's line — as we would have done, had it 
not been for slavery — and had disbursed it in the upbuild- 
ing of Norfolk, Beaufort, Charleston, or Savannah, how 
much richer, better, greater, would the South have been 
to-day I How much larger and more intelligent would 
have been our population. How many hundred thousand 
natives of the South would now be thriving at home, in- 
stead of adding to the wealth and political power of other 
parts of the Union. How much greater would be the num- 
ber and length of our railroads, canals, turnpikes, and tel- 
egraphs. How much greater would be the extent and 
diversity of our manufactures. How much greater would 
be the grandeur, and how much larger w^ould be the num- 
ber of our churches, theatres, schools, colleges, lyccums, 
banks, hotels, stores, and private dwellings. How many 
more clippers and steamships would we have sailing on 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMEttE. S33 

the ocean, how vastly more reputable would we be abroad, 
how infinitely more respectable, progressive, and hap})y. 
would we be at home. 

That we may learn something of the importance of 
cities in general, let us look for a moment at the great 
capitals of the world, Wliat would England be without 
London? What would France be without Paris? What 
would Turkey be without Constantinople ? Or, to come 
nearer home, what would Maiyland be without Baltimore? 
What would Louisiana be without New Orleans ? What 
would South Carolina be without Charleston ? Do we ever 
think of these countries or States without thinking of their 
cities also ? If we want to learn the news of the country, 
do we not go to the city, or to the city papers ? Every 
metropolis may be regarded as the nucleus or epitome of 
the country in which it is situated ; and the more promi- 
nent features and characteristics of a country, particularly 
of the people of a country, are almost always to be seen 
within the limits of its capital city. Almost invariably 
do we find the bulk of the floating funds, the best talent, 
and the most vigorous energies of a nation concentrated 
in its chief cities ; and does not this concentration of 
wealth, energy, and talent, conduce, in an extraordinary 
degree, to the growth and prosperity of the nation ? Un- 
questionably. Wealth develops wealth, energy develops 
energy, talent develops talent. What, then, must be the 
condition of those countries which do not possess the 
means or facilities of centralizing their material forces, 
tlicir energies, and their talents ? Are they not destined 



834 COMMERCIAL CITIES —aouTHEK tOMMERCjfi. 

to occupy an inferior rank among he nations bI* ine 
earth ? Let the South answer. 

And now let us ask, and we would put the question 
particularly to Southern merchants, what do we so much 
need as a great Southern metropolis ? Merchants of tlie 
South, slaveholders 1 you are the avaricious assassinators 
of your country 1 You are the channels through which 
more than one hundred and twenty millions of dollars — 
$120,000,000 — are annually drained from the South and 
conveyed to the North. You are daily engaged in the 
unmanly and unpatriotic work of impoverishing the land 
of your birth. You are constantly enfeebling our resources 
and rendering us more and more tributary to distant parts 
of the nation. Your conduct is reprehensible, base, crim- 
inal. 

Whether Southern merchants ever think of the nume- 
rous ways in which they contribute to the aggrandize- 
ment of the North, while, at the same time, they enervate 
and dishonor the South, has, for many years, with us, been 
a matter of more than ordinary conjecture. If, as it would 
seem, they have never yet thought of the subject, it is 
certainly desirable that they should exercise their minds 
upon it at once. Let them scrutinize the workings of 
Soutliern money after it passes north of Mason and Dix- 
on's line. Let them consider how much they pay to North- 
ern railroads and hotels, how much to Northern mer- 
chants and shop-keepers, how much to Northern shippers 
and insurers, how much to Northern theatres, newspapers, 
and periodicals. Let them also consider what disposition 
is made of it after it is lodged in the hands of the North. 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 335 

Is cot the greater part of it paid out to Northern loanu 
facturers, mechanics, and laborers, for the very articles 
which are purchased at the JS :)rth — and to the extent that 
this is done, are not Northern, manufacturers, mechanics, 
and laborers directly countenanced and encouraged, while, 
at the same time. Southern manufacturers, mechanics, 
and laborers, arc indirectly abased, depressed, and dis- 
abled ? It is, however, a matter of impossibility, on 
these small pages, to notice or enumerate all the me- 
thods in wliich the money we deposit in the North 
is made to operate against us ; suffice it to say that 
it is circulated and expended there, among all classes of 
the people, to the injury and impoverishment of almost 
every individual in the South. And yet, our cousins of 
the North are not, by any means, blameworthy for availing 
themselves of the advantages which we have voluntarily 
yielded to them. They have shown their wisdom in grow- 
ing great at our expense, and we have shown our folly in 
allowing them to do so. Southern merchants, slaveholders, 
and slave-breeders, should be the objects of our censure ; 
they have desolated and impoverished the South ; they 
are now making merchandize of the vitals of their coun- 
try ; patriotism is a word nowhere recorded in their vo- 
cabulary ; town, city, country — they care for neither ; 
with them, self is always paramount to every other con- 
sideration, 

Having already compared slavery with freedom in the 
States, we will now compare it with freedom in the cities. 
From every person as yet unconvinced of the despicable- 



336 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

ness of slavery, we respectfully ask attention to the fol- 
lowing letters, which fully explain themselves : — 

Finance Department Comptroller's Office, ? 
New-York, February 17th, 1857. S 

EL R. IIllper, Esq., 

Dear Sir: — 
Your letter to Mayor Wood has been handed to me for au 
ansv/er, which I take pleasure in giving as follows : 

The last assessment of property in this city was made in 
August, 1856. 

The value of all the real and personal property in the city, ac- 
cording to that assessment, is ^511,740,492. 

A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of in- 
habitants at that time can be obtained only from the Secretary 
of Sta^o. Very truly yours, 

A. S. Cady. 



State of New-York, Secretary's Office, 
Albany, February 24, 1857. 
H. L. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 
Y«»urs of the 17th February, in regard to the population of the 
city of New York, is before me. According to the census of 

029,810 

515,547 



1855 the 


population was 


1850 *' 




1845 '' 




1840 » 




1835 •' 




iR'^n «c 





371,223 
312,710 
208,089 
197,112 



As to the population now, you have the same facilities of judg 
ing that we have from the above table. 
Very truly yours, 

A.N.Wakefield Chief Clerk, 



commercial iiyies — southekx :ommerce. 337 

Mavou's Office, City Hall, ^ 

Baltimore, December 26, 1856. ^ 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir — 

His Honor the Mayor of this City has requested me to repl^ 
to your communic;ation of the 24th inst, addressed to him. re- 
questing answers to certain questions. 

In answer to your first iutenogatory, I would state that the 
amount of direct taxation assessed January 1st, 1850, was 
^102,053,839 ; the amount of exempt taxation (i. e. property out 
of the limits of direct tax) assessed at that date was !H;6,054,733. 

In reply to your second inquirj^, I would state that no census 
of the city has been taken since 1850. The estimated population 
at this time is about 250,000. Respectfully Yours, &c., &c., 

D. H. Blanchard, Secntary. 



Office of the Mayor of ths City of Philadelphia. •< 

December 30, 1856. 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

Bear Sir: 
In reply to your note of the 25th inst.. received to-day, I has- 
ten to give you the estimates you ask. 

Real Estate, 150 millions ; it is about one- half the real value, 
[ts market price is at least 300 million dollars. 

The Personal Estate is returned at 20 millions ; it is over 110 
millions. There has been no census since 1850. The populatioD 
now is 500,000. Yours truly. 

G.Vaux. 



State of Louisiana, Mayoralty of New Orleans, > 
City Hall, 3d day of Jan'y, 1857. \ 

Mr. II. R. Helper, 

New-York : 

Dear Sir : — 
In answer to your note of the 24th December, I be^ to refer 
you to the enclosed abstract for the value of real estate and 
slaves according to the list assessment. 

15 



338 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUIJLERN COMMERCE. 

There has heretofore been no assessment of personal property 
— there having been no tax authorized until this year. The as- 
sessment is now being made and will probably add about ^5,000,- 
000 to the assessment as stated in the abstract. 

There has been nc census since the U. S. census of 1850, ex- 
cept an informal census, made in 1852, for the purpose of dividing 
the city into wards anew. 

The estimated population now is about 150 to 175,000 inhabi- 
tants — permanent population — including the floating population 
at this season, it would probably reach not less than 210,000 in- 
habitants. The U. S. census was taken in the summer months, 
and is very incorrect as to the absolute population of New Or- 
leans. Very respectfully, 

Your obed't serv't, 

J. B. Walton, 

Secretary, 

By reference to the abstract of which Mr. Walton speaks, 
we find that the value of real and personal property is 
summed up as follows ; — 

Real Estate, - - - ^07,460,115 

Slaves, - - - . 5,183,580 

Capital, - - - - 18,544,300 



Dotal, - - - ^91,188,195 



City Hall, Boston, \ 
Dec. 31, 1856. \ 

Dear Sir: — Yours of the 25th inst., addressed to the Mayor 
has been handed to me for a reply — and I would accordingly 
B*ate that the value of real and personal estate in this city, on 
the first day of May, A.D. 1856, was ^249,162,500. 

The census of the city of Boston, on the first day of May, A.D 
1855, was 162,748 parsons. 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOLTIIEUN COMMF.RCE. 339 

The estimated population of the city :f Boston at this date- 
say January 1st, 1857 — is 165,000. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

Saml. T. McCleary, 

City Clerk. 



St. Louis, > 
Feb. 27, 1S57. \ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New- York : 

Dear Sir : — 
In reply to yours of the 9th inst., I beg leave to state, that a 
census of our population was taken in the spring of 1856 by the 
Sheriff, and although it was inaccurate, yet the population as re- 
turned by him was then 125,500. That his census is too low 
there is no doubt. Our population at this time is at least 
140,000. 

Our last assessment was made in February, 1856. Value of 
real and personal estate, is, in round numbers, ^63.000.000. 

Trusting this information will be sufficient for your purpose, 
I remain. Yours, &c., 

John How, 

3Ia7jor, 



Mayor's Office. City Hall, Brooklyn 
January 24th, 1857. 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Sir:— 
The answers to your inquiries are as follows : 
The last assessment of property in this city was made in 
August, 1856. 

The value of all the real and personal property in the city, ac- 
cording to that assessment, is $95,800,440. 

A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of in- 
habitants, according to it, was 205,250. 
The estimated population now is 225,000. 
The last annua report of the Comptroller, together with a 



340 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCC. 

communication of the Mayor to the Common Council, made on 
the 5th of Jan.. 1857, have been transmitted by mail to your ad- 
dress, and from them you may be able to obtain any furtlKi 
Lformation you may desire. Yours, respectfully. 

S. S. Powell, 

Mayor. 
By C. S. Braikerd. 



Mayor's Office, > 

Charleston, Feb. 16, 1857. \ 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

(New York,) 

Dear Sir: — 
Yours of the 9th has just been received, I sent you, through 
the Clerk of Council, some time ago, the Annual Fiscal State- 
ment of the Committee on Accounts made to the City Council, 
which would give some of the information which you desire. I 
will have another copy sent you. 

No census has been taken since 1848. The population at pre- 
sent must be between fifty and sixty thousand. 

Any information which it may be in my power to furnish you 
with, will always give me pleasure to supply. 

Very respectfullj', 

Wm. Porcher Miles, 

Mayor. 

From a report of the " Annual accounts of the city of 
Charleston, for the fiscal year ending the 31st of August, 
1856," it appears that the total value of real and personal 
property, including slaves — nearly half the population — 
was $36,121,151. 



Mayor's Office, > 

Cincinnati, Jan'y 2, 1857. y 
Dear Sit : — In reply to your note of the 25th ult., I beg leave 
to say thai the -^alue of all the real and personal property in 



COilMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN* COMMERCE. 341 

this city, as assessed for taxation, amounts to .$88,810,734. The 
realty being !$60,70] ,2G7 ; the personalty §;20795,203, and tht 
bank and brokers' capital ^7,314,204. The assessment of tlic 
realty was made in 1853 ; that of the personalty is made it 
March of each year. 

Our present population is estimated at 210,000. No complet 
census has been taken since 1850. 

The total of taxes levied on the above assessment of ^88,810, 
734, for city purposes, was ^529,727,05. 

Very respectfully, 

Your ob'dt. serv't, 
H. R. Helper, Esq., Jas. J. Faran 

New-York. Mayor. 



Mayor's Office, > 

Louisville, Ky., January 1st, 1857. \ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York City, 

Dear Sir : — 
Yonr favor 24th ult. is received — contents noted. I will re- 
mark in reply, that the taxes of this city are levied only on real 
estate, slaves, and merchandise, (exclusive of home manufac- 
tures.) which are taken at what is supposed to be their cash 
value, but is much less than the real value. Our last assessment 
was made the 10th January, 1850, and amounted to !$31.500,000 
There has been no census of this city taken since 1850, our 
charter requiring that it shall be taken this year. I am now pre- 
paring to have it done. It is supposed Louisville at this time 
has a population of 65 or 70 thousand. 

I send with this my last annual message to the Gen. Council 
»nd accompanying documents. 

Respectfu'ly yours, 

John Barbee Mayor, 



342 coinrERciAL cities — southern commerce. 

Daily Tribune Office. 7 

Chicago, May 21, 1857. J 

H. R. Helper, Esq. 

Sir:— 

In the May No. of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine you will fiutl 
some of your questions answered. The actual cash value of pro- 
perty is not taken by the assessors. Citizens are not sworn as 
to the value of their personal effects, nor is real estate given in 
at twenty per cent, of its selling cash price. An elaborate esti- 
mate of the real value, in cash, of Chicago, which we have seen. 

puts the real estate at ,^125,000.000 

Improvements on the same, - - - - !j^24,000.0()C 

Personal prof erty, §22,000,000 

In 1857 total value, ----- ^171.000,000 

On half a dozen streets in this city lots sell readily at $1,000 to 
$1,200 per foot front, exclusive of improvements. 

A census of the population of Chicago was taken in October, 
1853, and in June, 1855, the latter by State authority. That of 
October '53 found G0,G52 ; that of June '55 found 80,509. The 
best estimate at present makes the number, on May 1st, 1857. to 
be 112,000, which is rather under than over the truth. The 
amount of building, in the city, is immense, but as quickly as a 
tenement can be spiked together, it is taken at a high rent ; and 
at no former period has there seemed so rapid an augmentation 
of population. Very truly yours, 

Ray & ]Medill, 

Eds. Ch. Trih. 



^ 



Richmond. Va. 

April 25th, '57. 

H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 

Yours of the 14th inst. has been received and should have been 
answered sooner, but it was impossible to get the information 
you desired earlier. The value of the real estate in the city of 
Richmond is $18,000,000. The value of the personal is $191,920. 
Total value $18,201,920. This does not include slaves, of whom 
there are 6,472 in the city. The State values each slave at $300 



COMMERLIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 343 

each— making ^1,941,000. which, added to the total above, makes 
^20,143,520. The number of inhabitants — white and black, is 
34,G12 within the corporation limits. The assessment was made 
in 1855 throughout the whole State. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

B. W. Starke. 



Mayor's Office, ^ 

Providence, Dec. 31st, 185G. J 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New York, 

Bear Sir : — 
Yours of 25th is this moment received. You will receive with 
this a communication from the Chairman of the Board of Assess- 
ors, giving the requisite information from that department. I 
send you this day a census report, taken 1855. which will give 
you the information asked. Our population at this time is be- 
tween 50 and 60,000. Respectfully, 

James Y. Smith, 

Mayor. 



Assessor's Office, 
Providence, Dec. 31st, 1856. 
H. R. Helper, Esq.. 

Dear Sir : — 
His Honor, the Mayor of this City, has requested me to answer 
your communication of the 25th inst., addressed to him, so far as 
relates to the valuation of this city, &c., which is herewi h pre ■ 
gented. 

The valuation of this City in 1856 is as follows : 

Real Estate, !^36,487.116 

Personal Estate, .... 21,577,400 



Total, $58,004,516 

Our last assessment was ordered in June last, and compl-ete 
on the 1st day of September ]a"-.t. 



344 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

Rates of taxation ^7 75 per ^1000. 
Amount of tax raised ^450,000. 

Respectfully yours, 

Joseph Martin, 
Chairman of the Board of Assessors. 



Herald Office, > 

Norfolk. Va., 28th April 1857. 5 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir .•— 
The value of all the real estate, as re-assessed about two months 
ago, is set down, say, in round numbers, at five and a half mil- 
lions. The actual value would bring it somewhat above that 
mark. The assessment of the personal property will be com- 
pleted in three or four weeks hence ; but its exact value cannot 
be arrived at from the fact that a large portion of this descrip- 
tion of propert}" — including slaves — is taxed specifically without 
regard to its value. It is estimated by the assessors, however, 
that the personal exceeds the real estate^ and may be safely set 
down at six and a half millions. 

There has been no census taken since 1850. The State autho- 
rities assume the population to be 10,000, but I am informed by 
the assessors that 17,000 is a fairer estimate. 

Hoping that the information given may answer the purpose 
for which you require it, I am. Respectfully yours, 

R. G. Broughton. 



Mayor's Office, > 
Buffalo, March 10, 1857. 5 
Dear Sir : — Yours, of the 9th inst., was received this morning. 
The answers to your questions are as follows : 

The last valuation of the property of our city was made in April, 
1856. 

Valuati ^n of real estate, . . .^"8,114.040 
" personal estate, . . 7,300,436 



Total real and personal, $45,474,476 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COJIMERCE, 345 

The last census was the State census, taken in the summer of 
1855. That showed a population of 74,211 ; a fair estimate now 
is 90.000. Respectfully, 

Your ob't serv't, 

F. P. Stevens. 



Mayor's Office, > 

Savannah, 9th January, 1856. y 

U. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir : — 
In reply to your first interrogatory, I send you the last Mayor's 
report, in which you will find the information you seek. 
No census has been taken of the city since 1850. 
The estimated population is 25,000. 

Very respectfully yours, 

J. P. Screven, 

3Iayor. 

From the Mayor's annual report, we learn that the " as- 
sessments or value of lands and improvements," for the 
year ending October 31st, 1856, amounted to $8,999,015. 
The value of the personal property is, perhaps, about 
$3,000,000 — total value of real and personal estate 
$11,999,015. 



City of New-Bedford, ^ 

Mayor's Room, 1 mo., 6th, 1857. ^ 



II. R. Helper : — 

Yours of the 4th inst. came to hand this morning. 
In reply to your inquiries, I will say that the amount assessed 
on the 1st day of May, 1856, was as follows : — 

Real Estate, 1^9,311.500 

Personal, - - - -' - - 17J85,500 

Total, $27,047,000 

15* 



340 (J0M.MEKG1AL CITIES SOUTIIERX COjIMERCE. 

The returns of a census taken the previc us autumn gave 20,391 
persons, from which there is not probabl}^ much change. 

Kespectfully, 

Geo. Howland, Jr. 

Maijor. 



Mayor's OrriCE, > 

Wilmington, N. C, May 23d, 1857. \ 
H. R Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir : — 
I am in receipt of yours of 10th inst. The value of real estate 
as per last assessment, 1st April, 1856, was ^3,350,000 

We have no system by which to arrive at the value 
of personal property : I estimate the amount, however, 
exclusive of merchandize, at ^4,509,000 

There has been no census taken since 1850 — the present num- 
ber of inhabitants is estimated at 10,000. 

I reg;' et my inability to aflford you more definite information. 

Very respectfullj^, &c.. 

0, G. Parsley, 

Mayor, 



COMMERCIAL CITIES 30UTHER^r 'OMMERCE. 



3iT 



From the foregoing communications, wo make up the 
following summary of the. more important particulars : — 



NINE FREE CITIES. 



Name. 


Population. 


Wealth. 


Wealth 
per capita. 


New York 


700,000 

500,000 

165,000 

225,000 

210,000 

112,000 

60,000 

90,000 

21,000 

2,083,000 


S5 11,740,492 

325,000,000 

249,162,500 

95,800,440 

88,810,734 

171,000,000 

58,064,516 

45,474,476 

27,047,000 


$731 


Philadelphia 

Boston 

Brooklyn 

Cincinnati 

Chicago 


650 

1,510 

425 

422 

1,527 


Providence 


967 


Buffalo 

New Bedford 


505 
1,288 




SI, 572,100,158 


S754 



NINE SLAVE CITIES. 



Name. 


ropulation. 


Wealth. 


Wealth 
per capita. 


Baltimore 


250,000 
175,000 
140,000 
60,000 
70,000 
40,000 
17,000 
25,000 
10,000 


S102,053.839 
91,188,195 
63,000,000 
36,127,751 
31,500.000 
20,143,520 
12,000,000 
11,999,015 
7,850,000 

S375,862,320 


^408 


New Orleans 


521 


St. Louis 


450 


Charleston 

Louisville 

Richmond 

Norfolk 

Savannah 

Wilmino^ton 


602 
450 
503 
705 
480 
785 








787,000 


S477 



Let it not be forgotten tliat the slaves tnemselves are 
valued at so much per head, and counted as part of the 
wealth of slave cities ; and yet, though we assent, as we 
have done, to the inclusion of all this fictitious wealth, it 
will be observed that the '.-csidents of free cities are far 
wealthier, per capita, than the residents of slave cities. 
We trust the readci will not fail to examine the figures 
with great care 



SiS COilMEECIAL CITIES- -SOUTHERN COMMERC B. 

In this age of the world, commerce is an indispensable 
element of national greatness. Without commerce we 
can have no great cities, and without great cities we can 
have no reliable tenure of distinct nationality. Commerce 
is the forerunner of wealth and population ; and it is 
mainly these that make invincible the power of undying 
States. 

Speaking in general terms of the commerce of this coun- 
try, and of the great cities through which that commerce 
is chiefly carried on, the Boston Traveler says : — 

" The wealth concentrated at the great commercial points of 
the United States is truly astonishing. For instance, one-eighth 
part of the entire property of this country is owned by the cities 
of New-York and Boston. Boston alone, in its corporate limits, 
owns one-twentieth of the property of this entire Union, being 
an amount equal to the wealth of any three of the New-England 
States, except Massachusetts. In this city is found the richest 
community, per capita, of any in the United States. The next 
city in point of wealth, according to its population, is Providence, 
(R. I.,) which city is one of the richest in the Union, having a 
valuation of fifty-six millions, with a population of fifty thousand." 

The same paper, in the course of an editorial article on 
the '' Wealth of Boston and its Business," says : — 

" The assessors' return of the wealth of Boston will probably 
show this year an aggregate property of nearly three hundred 
millions. This sum. divided among 160,000 people, would give 
nearly ^2,000 to each inhabitant, and will show Boston to be 
much the wealthiest community in the United States, save New 
York alone, with four times its population. The value of the 
real estate in this city is increasing now with great rapidity, as 
at least four millions of dollars' worth of new houses and stores 
will be built this year. The personal estate in ships, cargoes, 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 3-i9 

stocks, &c., is greatly iijcreasing with each succeeding year, not 
withstanding the many disasters and losses constantly occurring 
in such kinds of property. 

"It is impossible to get the exact earnings of the nearly sij 
hundred thousand tons of shipping owned in this city. But per- 
haps it would not be much out of the way to set the total amount 
for 1855 at from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars. This f;uin 
has probably been earned by our fleet engaged in the domesiii 
trade, and in commercial transactions with the East and Wes. 
Indies, South America, the Pacific, Europe and Africa. The thrtt 
sources from which the population of Boston is maintained, and 
its prosperity continued, are these : Commerce, trade, and manu- 
factures. Its annual trade and sales of merchandise are said now, 
by competent judges, to amount to three hundred millions of 
goods per annum, and will soon greatly exceed that vast sum. 
The annual manufactures of this city are much more in amount 
than in many entire States in this Union. They amount, accord- 
ing to recent statistics, to nearly seventy-five millions of dollars." 

Freeman Hunt, the accomplished editor of Hwifs Mer- 
chants' Magazine^ writing on the " Progressive Growth of 
Cities," says : — 

•' London is now the greatest concentration of human power 
the world has ever known. Will its supremacy be permanent? 
or will it, like its predecessors, be eclipsed by western rivals ? 
New-Yorkers do not doubt, and indeed have no reason to doubt, 
that their city, now numbering little more than one-third of the 
population of London, will, within the next fifty years, be greater 
than the metropolis of the British empire. 

''New York, with her immediate dependencies, numbers about 
900.000. Since 1790 she has established a law of growth which 
doubles her population once in fifteen years. If this law con- 
tinues to operate, she may be expected to possess 1,800,000 in 
1871,3,600,000 in 1886, and 7,200.000 in 1901. If twenty years 
be allowed New York as her future period of duplication, she 
would o^'ertake L^^ndon by the end of fifty years ; London may 



350 COilMERClAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMEECE. 

then have five millions j New-York will almost certainly have 
more than that number. 

"Will the star of empire become stationary at New-York? 
The interior plain of North America has within itself more means 
to sustain a dense population in civilized comfort than any other 
region of the world. The star of empire cannot be arrested in 
its western course before it reaches this plain. Its most promis- 
ing city at present is Chicago. The law of its growth since 1840 
seems o be a duplication within four years. In 1840 it num- 
bered 4,379. In June of this year it will contain 88,000. At 
the same rate of increase carried forward, it would overtake New^- 
York wnthin twenty years. If six years be allowed for each 
future duplication, Chicago would overtake New-York in thirty- 
three years. If the growth of Chicago should in future be mea- 
sured by a duplication of every seven years, it would contain 
5,622,000 in forty -two years. 

" In 1901, forty-five years from this time, the central plain, in- 
cluding the Canadas, will contain about eighty millions of peo- 
ple. Its chief cit}^ may be reasonably expected to contain about 
one-tenth of this population. Before the end of this century the 
towns and cities of the central plain will contain, with their 
suburbs, not less than half the entire population ; that is to say, 
forty millions. How these millions shall be apportioned among 
the cities of that day, is a subject for curious speculation." 

A FLEET OF MERCHANTMEN. 

The Boston Joiornal, of a late date, says : — 

" About one hundred sail of vessels, of various descriptions, 
entered this port yesterday, consisting of traders from Europe, 
South America, the West Indies, and from coastwise ports. The 
waters of the bay and harbor presented a beautiful appearance 
from the surrounding shores, as this fleet of white-winged mes- 
sengers made their way towards the city, and crowds of people 
must have witnessed their advent with great delight. A more 
magnificent sight is seldom seen in our harbor." 

Would to God that such si;2'hts could sometimes be seen 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 351 

in Southern harbors ! "WTicn slavery shall cease to para- 
lyse the energies of our people, then ships, coming to us 
from the four quarters of the globe, will, with majestic 
grandeur, begin to loom in the distance ; our bays will 
rejoice in the presence of "the white-winged messengers," 
and our levees resound as never before with the varied 
din of commerce. 

COMMERCE OF NORFOLK. 

The Southern Argus thus speaks of the ruined commerce 
of a most despicable niggerville : — 

""We question if any other community, certainly no other in 
the United States of America, have made greater exertions to 
resuscitate the trade of Norfolk than the mercantile portion of 
the inhabitants ; in proof of which nineteen-twentieths of those 
engaged in foreign commerce have terminated in their insolvency, 
the principal cause of which has been in the unrelenting hostility, 
to this day, from the commencement of the present century, of 
the Virginia Legislature, with the co-operation of at least the 
commercial portions of the citizens of Richmond, Petersburg and 
Portsmouth." 

How it is, in this enlightened age, that men of ordinary 
Intelligence can be so far led into error as to suppose that 
commerce, or any other noble enterprise, can be established 
and successfully prosecuted under the dominion of slavery, 
is, to us, one of the most inexplicable of mysteries. " Com- 
mercial" Conventions, composed of the self-titled lordlings 
of slavery — Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, etcx'tera 
— may act out their annual programmes of farcical non- 
sense from now until daimsday ; but they will never add 
one iota to the material, moral, or mental intcn^sts of tlift 



352 COMMERCIAL CITIES SODTHER.V COMMERCE. 

South, — never can, UDtil tlieir ebony idol shall have been 
utterly demolished. 

BALTIMORE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTCRE. 

We are indebted to the Baltimore Patriot for th-? follow- 
ing interesting sketch of the Monumental City as it was, 
and as it is, and as it may be : — 

"The population of Baltimore in 1790 was 13 503; in 1800. 
15,514; in 1810, 35,583; in 1820, 02.738; in 1830. 80,025; in 
1840, 110,313; in 1850, 109,051. Tlie increase of inhabitants 
within two particular decades, will be found, by reference to the 
above table, to be remarkable. Between 1800 and 1810, the 
population nearly doubled itself; between 1840 and 1850. the 
increase was two-thirds ; and for ihe past five years, the inimer- 
ical extension of our population has been even more rapid than 
during the previous decade. We may safely assume tha-t Balti- 
more contains at the present time not less than 250.000 inhabit- 
ants. But the increase in the manufactured products of the State, 
as shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, is a 
matter of even greater astoni.^hraent. The statistical tables cf 
1840 estimate the aggregate value of the manufactures of Mary- 
land at ^13,509,630 — thii teen ivilUnn five hundred and nine thou 
sand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. In 1850, the value ^f 
the articles manufactured within the limits of the State amounted 
to ^32,593,635 — thirty-two million fice hundred and ninety-three 
thousand six hundred and thirty-five dollars ! A signal proof 
that the wealth of the State has increased with even far greater 
rapidity than its population. A quarter of a century ago, the 
sum of our manufactures did not much exceed five millions of 
dollars per annum. At this day it may be set down as falling 
but little short of fifty millioiis. These are facts taken from offi- 
cial sources, and therefore understated rather than exceeded. 
They are easily verified by any one who will take the necessary 
trouble to examine the reports for himself; and they justify us 
in the assertion that wf are but fifteen years behind Philadelphia 



COIIMERCIAL CITIES SOUTnERN COMMERCE. 3') 3 

in population, and are onl}'- at the same relative distancti from 
her in point of wealth. 

A change has been going on for some time past in our com- 
mercial and industrial affairs which all may have noticed, but the 
extent of which is known to but few, and we hazard nothing in 
saying that this enormous progression must continue, because it 
is based upon a solid foundation, and therefore subject to no or- 
dinary contingencies. 

Occupying geographically the most central position on this 
Continent, with vast mines of coal lying within easy distance to 
the North and West of us. with a harbor easy of access, and with 
railroads penetrating by the shortest routes the most fertile sec- 
tions of the Union, we need nothing but the judicious fostering 
of a proper spirit among our citizens to make Baltimore not only 
the commercial emporium of the South and West, but also the 
great coal mart of the Union. Our flour market is already the 
most extensive in the known world — we speak without exagger- 
ation, for this also is proven by unquestionable facts. There is 
more guano annually brought into our port than into all the other 
ports of the United States put together, and the demand for this 
important article of commerce is steadily increasing. Our ship- 
ments of tobacco are immense, and as the improvement in the 
depth of the channel of the Patapsco increases, must inevitably 
become much greater. 

Such, then, is our present condition as a commercial commu- 
nity, and when we add that our prosperity is as much owing to 
our admirable geographical position as to the energy of our mer- 
chants and manufacturers, we design to cast no imputation on 
these excellent citizens, but rather to stimulate them to renewed 
efforts in a field where enterprise cannot fail of reaping its due 
reward. 

Take any common map of the United States and rule an air 
line across it from Baltimore to St. Louis, and midwa}- between 
the two it will strike Cincinnati — the great inland centre of 
trade — traversing at the same time those wonderfilly fertile val- 
leys v.'hich lie between the latter point and tlie Mississippi river. 
Now let it be remembered that since the introduction of rail- 
way s fluvial navigation has been, to a considerable extent, snjier- 



354 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMrilERCE. 

seded by inland transport, because of the greater speed a.»d eer 
tainty of the latter. Let it be reniembered also that the migra- 
tion westward is incessantly going on, and that with eveiy farm 
opened withm striking distance of a great arterial railway, or its 
anastomosing branches, a certain amount of freight must find its 
way to the seaboard markets, while the demand for manuftictured 
products, and for domestic or foreign commodities, in exchange 
for breadstufFs or raw material, must necessarily increase ; 
thereby adding greatly to the prosperity of the commercial cen- 
tre towards which articles of export tend, and from which im- 
ports in return are drawn. It would be difficult to estimate the 
value of what this trade will be fifty j-ears hence, or what the 
population of Baltimore, situated as she is. will b}'' that time 
have become. 

Reasoning from causes to effects, and presuming that ordinary 
perseverance will be used in promoting the interests of our city, 
industrially and commercially, we are justified in believing that 
its progress must be in an accelerated ratio, and that there are 
those now living who will look back with surprise and wonder 
at its growth and magnitude, as we have done while comparing 
its present aspect with that which it exhibited within our own 
memory." 

It is a remarkable fact, but one not at all surprising to 
those whose philosophy leads them to think aright, that 
Baltimore and St. Louis, the two most prosperous cities in 
the slave States, have fewer slaves in proportion to the 
aggregate population than any other city or cities in the 
South. While the entire population of the former is now 
estimated at 250 000, and that of the latter at 140,000 — 
making a grand total of 390,000 in the two cities, less 
than 6,000 of this latter number are slaves ; indeed, neither 
city is cursed with half the number of 8,000. 

In 1850, there were only 2,946 slaves in Baltimore, and 
2,656 in St. Louis -total in tlie two cities 5,602 ; and in 



COMilERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COilMERCE. 355 

botli places, thank Ileavcn, this heathenish chiss of the 
population was rapidly decreasing. The census of 1860 
will, in all probability, show that the two cities are en- 
tirely exempt from slaves and slavery ; and that of 1870 
will, we prayerfully hope, show that the United States at 
large, a^ that time, will have been wholly redeemed from 
the unspeakable curse of human bondage. 

What about Southern Commerce ? Is it not almost en- 
tirely tributary to the commerce of the North ? Are we 
not dependent on New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, and 
Cincinnati, for nearly every article of merchandise, whe- 
ther foreign or domestic ? Where are our ships, our mari 
ners, our naval architects ? Alas I echo answers, where ? 

Reader ! would you understand how abjectly slave- 
holders themselves are enslaved to tlie products of North- 
ern industry ? If you would, fix your mind on a Southern 
"gentleman" — a slave-breeder and human-flesh monger, 
who professes to be a Christian ! Observe the routine of 
his daily life. See him rise in the morning from a North- 
ern bed, and clothe himself in Northern apparel ; see him 
walk across the floor on a Northern carpet, and perform 
his ablutions out of a Northern ewer and basin. See him 
uncover a box of Northern powders, and cleanse his teeth 
with a Northern brush ; see him reflecting his physiog- 
nomy in a Northern mirror, and arranging his hair with a 
Northern comb See him dosing himself with the mendi- 
caments of Northern quacks, and perfuming his handker- 
chief with Northern cologne. See him referring to the 
time in a Northern witch, and glancing at tne news in a 
Northern gazette. See him And his family sitting in 



356 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHLRN COiniERCE. 

Northern chairs, and singing and praying out of Northern 
books. See him at the breakfast table, sa;ying grace over 
a Northern plate, eating with Northern cutlery, and drink- 
ing from Northern utensils. See him charmed with the 
melody of a Northern piano, or musing over the pages of 
a Northern novel. See him riding to his neighbor's in a 
Northern carriage, or furrowing his lands with a North- 
ern plow. See him lighting his segar with a Northern 
match, and flogging his negroes with a Northern lash. 
See him with Northern pen and ink, writing letters on 
Northern paper, and sending them away in Northern en- 
velopes, sealed with Northern wax, and impressed with a 
Northern stamp. Perhaps our Southern " gentleman" is 
a merchant ; if so, see him at his store, making an unpa- 
triotic use of his- time in the miserable traffic of Northern 
gimcracks and haberdashery ; see him when you will, 
where you will, he is ever surrounded with the industrial 
products of those whom, in the criminal inconsistency of 
his heart, lie execrates as enemies, yet treats as friends 
His labors, his talents, his influence, are all for the North, 
and not for the South ; for the stability of slavery, and 
for the sake of his own personal aggrandizement, he is 
willing to sacrifice the dearest interests of his country. 

As we see our ruinous system of commerce exemplified 
in the family of our Southern " gentleman," so we may see 
it exemplified, to a greater or less degree, in almost every 
other familjT- throughout the length and breadth of the 
slave-holding States. We are all constantly buymg, 
and selling, and wearing, and using Northern merchan- 
dise, at a douli e expense to both ourselves and our neigh- 



COMilERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COiDIERCE. 3f)7 

burs. If we but look at ourselves attentively, we shall 
ilud that we are all clothed c^^ a ^ic in Northern habihi- 
nients. Our hats, our caps, our cravats, our coats, our 
vests, our pants, our gloves, our boots, our shoes, our 
under-garments — all come from the North ; whence, too. 
Southern ladies procure all their bonnets, plumes, and 
flowers ; dresses, shawls, and scarfs ; frills, ribbons, and 
ruffles ; cuffs, capes, and collars. 

True it is that the South has wonderful powers of endu- 
rance and recuperation ; but she cannot forever support the 
reckless prodigality of her sons. We arc all spendthrifts ; 
some of us should become financiers. We must learn to 
take care of our money ; we should withhold it from the 
North, and open avenues for its circulation at home. We 
should not run to New-York, to Philadelphia, to Boston, 
to Cincinnati, or to any other Northern city, every time 
we want a shoe-string or a bedstead, a fish-hook or a hand- 
saw, a tooth-pick or a cotton-gin. In ease and luxury we 
have been lolling long enough ; we should now bestir 
ourselves, and keep pace with the progress of the age. 
We must expand our energies, and acquire habits of enter- 
prise and industry ; we should arouse ourselves from the 
couch of lassitude, and inure our minds to thought and 
our bodies to action. We must begin to feed on a more 
substantial diet than that of pro-slavery politics ; we should 
leave off our siestas and post-meridian naps, and employ 
our time in profitable vocations. Before us there is a vast 
work to be accomplished — a work which has been accu- 
mulating on our hands for many years. It is no less a 
work than that of infusing the spirit of liberty into all cmr 



358 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

systems of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, govern- 
ment, literature, and religion. Oligarchal despotism must 
be overthrown ; slavery must be abolished. 

For the purpose of showing how absolutely Southern 
" gentlemen," particularly slaveholding merchants, are 
lost to all sense of true honor and patriotism, we will 
here introduce an extract from an article which appeared 
more than three years ago in one of the editorial columns 
of the leading daily newspaper of the city of New-York 
It is in these words : — 

'•' Southern merchants do indeed keep away from New-York 
for the reason that they can't pay their debts ; there is no doubt 
that if the jobbers of this city had not trusted Southern traders 
for the past three years, they would be a great deal better 
off than the}' are. * * * Already our trade with Canada is be- 
coming as promising, sure, and profitable, as our trade with the 
South is uncertain, riskful, and annoying." 

Now, by any body of men not utterly debased by the 
influences of slavery, this language would have been con- 
strued into an invitation to stay at home. But do South- 
ern merchants stay at home ? Do they build up Southern 
commerce ? No I off they post to the North as regularly 
as the seasons, spring and fall, come round, and there, 
like cringing sycophants, flatter, beg, and scheme, for 
favors which they have no money to command. 

The better classes of merchants, and indeed of all other 
people, at the North, as elsewhere, have too much geimine 
respect for themselves to wish to have any dealings what- 
ever with those who make merchandise of human beings. 
Liiiited as is our acquaintance in the city of New- York, 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTUERN COMMERCE, 350 

we know one firm there, a large wholesale house, that 
makes it an invariable rule never to sell goods to a mer- 
chant from the slave States except for cash. Being well 
acquainted with the partners, we asked one of them, on 
one occasion, why he refused to trust slave-driving mer- 
chants. " Because," said he, " they are too long-winded 
and uncertain ; when we credit them, they occasion us 
more loss and bother than their trade is worth." Non- 
slaveholders of the South I recollect that slavery is the 
only impediment to your progress and prosperity, that it 
stands diametrically opposed to all needful reforms, that 
it seeks to sacrifice you entirely for the benefit of others, 
and that it is the one great and only cause of dishonor to 
your country. Will you not abolish it? May Heaven 
help you to do your duty I 



360 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE- 



i 



CHAPTER X. 

FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

Finding that we shall have to leave unsaid a great many 
things which we intended to say, and that we shall have 
to omit much valuable matter, the product of other pens 
than our own, but which, having collected at considerable 
expense, we had hoped to be able to introduce, we have 
concluded to present, under the above heading, only a few 
of the more important particulars. 

In the first place, we will give an explanation of the 
reason 

WHY this work was NOT PUBLISHED IN BALTIMORE. 

A considerable portion of this work was written in Bal- 
timore ; and the whole of it would have boon written and 
published there, but for the following odious clause, which 
we extract from the Statutes of Maryland : — 

" Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That 
after the passage of ^his act, it shall not be lawful for any citi- 
zen of this State, knowingly to make, print or engrave, or aid in 
*the making, printing or engraving, within this State, any picto- 
rial representation, or to write or print, or to aid in the writing or 
printing any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or other paper of an 
inflammatory character, and having a tendency to excite discon- 



FiCrS AND ARGUME^'TS BY THE WAYSIDE. 3(5l 

tent cr stir up insurrection amongst the people of color of thi.«« 
iStatr. or of either of the other States or Territories of the Unit- 
ed States, or knowingly to carry or send, or to aid in the carrv- 
ing or sending the same for circulation amongst the inhabitants of 
either of the other States or Territories of the United States, and 
any person so offending shall be guilty of a felony, and shall on 
conviction be sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary of this 
State, for a period not less than ten nor more than twenty years, 
from the time of sentence pronounced on such person." — Act 
passed Dec. 1831. See 2nd Dorsey, page 1218. 

Now so long as slaveholders are clothed with the man- 
tle of office, so long will they continue to make laws, like 
the above, expressly calculated to bring the non-slavehold- 
ing whites under a system of vassalage little less onerous 
and debasing than that to which the negroes themselves 
are accustomed. What wonder is it that there is no na- 
tive literature in the South ? The South can never have 
a literature of her own until after slavery shall have been 
abolished. Slaveholders are too lazy and ignorant to write 
it, and the non-slaveholders — even the few whose minds 
are cultivated at all — are not permitted even to make the 
attempt. I own with the oligarchy I Ineligibility of slave- 
holders — never another vote to the. trafficker in human 
Gosh I 

LEGISLATIVE ACTS AGAINST SLAVERY. 

In his Compendium of the Seventh Census, Mr. DeBow 
has compiled the following useful and highly interesting 
facts : — 

'"The Continental Congress of 1774 resolved to discontinue tlio 
slave trade, in wJ ich resolution they were anticipated by tho Con- 

16 



362 FACTS AND AKOrMENTS BY THE WAfSlOE 

■,-entions of Delegalos of Virginia and North Carolina. In 1785 
the Convention to frame the federal Constitution, looked to the 
abolition of the traffic in 1808. On the 2nd of March, 1807, Con- 
gress passed an act against importations of Africans into the 
United States after January 1st, 1808. An act in Great Britain 
in 1807 also made the slave trade unlawful. Denmark forbid the 
introduction of African slaves into her colonies after 1804. The 
Congress of Vienna, in 1815, pronounced for the abolition of the 
trade. France abolished it in 1817, and also Spain, but the acts 
were to take effect after 1820. Portugal abolisljed it in 1818. 

"In Pennsj^lvania slavery was abolished in 1780. In New 
Jersey it was provisionally abolished in 1784 ; all children bom 
of a slave after 1804 are made free in 1820. In Massachusetts, 
it was declared after the revolution, that slavery was virtually 
abolished by their Constitution, (1780). In 1784 and 1797, Con- 
necticut provided for a gradual extinction of slavery. In Rhode 
Island, after 1784, no person could be born a slave. The Consti 
tutions of Vermont and New Hampshire, respectively, abolished 
slavery. In New York it was provisionally abolished in 1799, 
twenty -eight years' ownership being allowed in slaves born after 
that date, and in 1817 it was enacted that slavery was not to 
exist after ten years, or 1827. The ordinance of 1787 forbid 
slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio." 

Besides the instances enumerated above, slavery has 
been abolished in more than forty different parts of the 
world within the last half century, and with g-ood results 
everywhere, except two or three West India islands, 
where the negro population was greatly in excess of the 
whites ; and even in these, the evils, if any, that have fol- 
lowed, are not justly attributable to abolition, but to the 
pie\^ious demoralization produced by slavery. 

In this connection we may very properly introduce the 
testimony of a West India planter to the relative advan- 
tages of Free over Slave Labor. Listen to Charles Petty 



FACTS AND ARGUMRXTS BY THE WAYSIDE. o6S 

John, of Barbadoes, who, addressing himself to a citizen 
(<f oiii own country, says : — 

'• In 1834, 1 came in possession of 257 slaves, under the laws 
of England, which required the owner to feed, clothe, and furnish 
tliem with medical attendance. Vrith this number I cultivated 
ni}' sugar plantation until the Emancipation Act of August 1st, 
1838, when they all became free. I now hire a port*;on of those 
slaves, the best and cheapest of course, as you hire men in the 
United States. The average number which I employ is 100, with 
which I cultivate more land at a cheaper rate, and make more 
produce than I did with 257 slaves. With my slaves I made from 
100 to 180 tons of sugar yearh'. With 100 free negroes I think 
I do badly if I do not aunuall}' produce 250 tons. 

If, in the forty and more instances to which we have 
alluded, the abolition of slavery had proved injurious in 
a majority of cases, the attempt to abolish it elsewhere 
might, perhaps, be regarded as an ill-advised effort ; but, 
seeing that its abolition has worked well in at least four- 
teen-fifteenths of all the cases on record, the fact becomes 
obvious that it is our duty and our interest to continue to 
abolish it until the whole world shall be freed, or until we 
shall begin to see more evil than good result from our 
acts of emancipation. 

THE TRUE FRIENDS OF THE SOUTH. 

Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of 
the South ; slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright 
enemies of their own section. Anti-slavery men are work- 
ing for the Union and for the good of the whole world ; 
proslavery i len are working for the disunion of the States, 
and for the good of nothing except themselves. Than 



B64 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

sucli men as Greeley, Seward, Sumner, Clay, and Birne}', 
the Sonth can have no truer friends — nor can slavery have 
more implacable foes. 

For the purpose of showing that Horace Greeley is not, 
as he is generally represented by the oligarchy, an invete- 
rate hater of the South, we will here introduce an extract 
from one of his editorial articles in a late number of the 
New York Tribune — a faithful advocate of freedom, whose 
circulation, we are happy to say, is greater than the 
aggregate circulation of more than twenty of the principal 
proslavery sheets published at the South : — 

*' Is it in vain that we pile fact upon fact, proof on proof, show- 
ing that slavery is a bhght and a curse to the States which cher- 
ish it ? These facts are multitudinous as the leaves of the forest ; 
"onclusive as the demonstrations of geometry. Nobody attempts 
fo refute them, but the champions of slavery extension seem de- 
^>;rmined to persist in ignoring them. Let it be understood, 
^hen, once for all, that we do not hate the South, war on the 
>*?outh, nor seek to ruin the South, in resisting the extension of 
slavery. We most earnestly believe human bondage a curse to 
the South, and to all whom it affects ; but we do not labor for its 
overthrow otherwise than through the conviction of the South of 
its injustice and mischief. Its extension into new Territories we 
determinedly resist, not by any means from ill will to the South, 
but under the impulse of good will to all mankind. We believe 
the establishment of slavery in Kansas or any other Western 
Territory would prolong its existence in Yirginia and Marj'land, 
by widening the market and increasing the price of slaves, and 
thereby increasing the profits of slave-breeding, and the conse- 
quent incitement thereto. Those who urge that slavery would 
not go into Kansas if permitted, wilfully shut their eyes to the 
fact that it has gone into Missouri, lying in exactly the same lati- 
tude, and is now strongest in that north-western angle of said 
State, which was covertly filched from what is now Kansas 
within til last twenty years. Even if the growth of hemp, com 



FACTS AXn AROUMENTS RY TUV. UA'S SIDF. 3*35 

and tobacco were not so profitable in Eastern Kansas, as it evi- 
dently must be, the growth of slaves for more Southern con- 
sumption would inevitably prove as lucrative there as in Virginia 
and Maryland, which lie in corresponding latitudes, and whoso 
chief staple export to-day consists of negro bondmen destined for 
the plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi, which could be sup- 
plied more conveniently and cheaply from Kansas than from their 
present breeding-places this side of the Alleghanies. 

Whenever we draw a parallel between Northern and Southern 
production, industry, thrift, wealth, the few who seek to parry 
the facts at all comjjlain that the instances are unfairly selected — 
that the commercial ascendancy of the North, with the profits 
and facilities thence accruing, accounts for the striking prepon- 
derance of the North. In vain we insist that slavery is the cause 
of this ver}- commercial ascendancy — that Norfolk and Richmond 
and Charleston might have been to this country what Boston, 
New-York and Philadelphia now are, had not slaver}'' spread its 
pall over and paralyzed the energies of the South." 

This may be regarded as a fair expression of the senti- 
inents of a great majority of the people noi th of Masou 
and Dixon's line. Our Northern cousins "do not hate the 
South, war on the South, nor seek to ruin the South ;" on 
the contrary, they love our particular part of the nation, 
and, like dutiful, sensible, upright men, they would pro- 
mote its interests by facilitating the abolition of slavery. 
Success to their efforts I 

SLAVERY THOUOIITFL'L SIGN'S OF CON'TRITIOX. 



The real condition of the South is most graphically de- 
scribed in the following doleful admissions from the Charles- 
ton Standard : — 

''In its every aspect our ])resent condition is provircial. "We 
havf* within our li-nits no solitary metropolis of interest or idctis 



^66 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE W-YSIDE. 

-no marts of exchange — no radiating centres of opinion. What- 
ever we have of genius and productive energy, goes freely in to 
swell the importance of the North. Possessing the material 
which constitutes two-thirds of the commerce of the whole coun- 
try, it might have been supposed that we could have influence 
upon the councils of foreign States ; but we are never taken into 
contemplation. It might have been supposed that England, 
bound to us by the cords upon which depend the existence of 
four millions of her subjects, would be considerate of our feel- 
ings ; but receiving her cotton from the North, it is for them slie 
has concern, and it is her interest and her pleasure to reproach 
us. It might have been supposed, that, producing the material 
which is sent abroad, to us would come the articles that are taken 
in exchange for it ; but to the North they go for distribution, and 
to us are parcelled out the fabrics that are suited to so remote a 
section. 

Instead, therefore, of New- York being tributary to Norfolk, 
Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans, these cities are tributary 
to New-York. Instead of the merchants of New- York standing 
cap in hand to the merchants of Charleston, the merchants of 
Charleston stand cap in hand to the merchants of New-York. — 
Instead of receiving foreign ships in Southern waters, and calling 
up the merchants of the country to a distribution of the cargo, 
the merchants of the South are hurried off to make a distribution 
elsewhere. In virtue of our relations to a greater S3'stem, we 
have little development of internal interests ; receiving supplies 
from the great centre, we have made little effort to supplj'' our- 
selves. We support the makers of boots, shoes, hats, coats, shirts, 
flannels, blankets, carpets, chairs, tables, mantels, mats, carriages, 
jewelry, cradles, couches, coffins, by the thousand and hundreds 
of thousands ; but they scorn to live amongst us. They must 
have the gaieties and splendors of a great metropolis, and are not 
content to vegetate upon the dim verge of this remote frontier. 

As it is in material interests, so it is in arts \nd letters— our 
pictures are painted at the North, our books aie pubhshed at the 
North, our periodicals and papers are printed at the North. We 
ai»3 even fed on police reports and villany from the North. The 
papers published at the South which ignore the questions at issue 



FACTS AND ARGUMENIS BY TIIE WAYSIDE. 361 

between the sections are generally well sustained ; the books 
which expose the evils of our institution are even road with 
avidity beyond our limits, but the ideas that are turned to the 
condition of the South are intensely provincial. If, as things now 
are, a man should rise with all the genius of Shakspeare, or Dick- 
ens, or Fielding, or of all the three combined, and speak from the 
South, he would not receive enough to pay the costs of publica- 
tion. If published at the South, his book would never be seen 
or heard of, and published at the North it would not be read. — 
So perfect is our provincialism, therefore, that enterprise is forced 
to the North for a sphere — talent for a market — genius for the 
ideas upon which to work — indolence for ease, and the toui-istfor 
attractions." 



This extract exhibits in bold relief, and in small space, 
a large number of the present evils of past errors. It is 
charmingly frank and trutlifiil. DeQuincey's Confessions 
of an opium eater are nothing to it. A distinguished writer 
on medical jurisprudence informs us that " the knowledge 
of the disease is half the cure ;" and if it be true, as per- 
haps it is, we think the Standard is in a fair way to be 
reclaimed from the enormous vices of proslavery statism. 

PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN THE SOUTH. 

" Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on." 

As well might the oligarchy attempt to stay the flux 
and reflux of the tides, as to attempt to stay the progress 
of Freedom in the South. Approved of God, the edict of 
the genius of Universal Emancipation has been proclaimed 
to the world, and nothing, save Deity himself, can poss'- 
bly reverse it. To rrrmh-o. f\t tho perpetuation of slavery 

Not to be an 




368 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS iJY THE WAYSIDE 

abolitionist is to be a wilful and diabolical instrument of 
the devil. The South needs to be free, the South wants 
to be free, the South shall be free I 

The following extracts from Southern journals will show 
that the glorious light of a better era has already begun 
to penetrate and dispel the portentous clouds of slavery. 
The Wellsburg (Va.) Herald, an independent paper, refer- 
ring to the vote of thirteen Democrats from that section, 
refusing, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1856, "to appro- 
priate money from the general treasury for the recapture 
of runaway slaves," says : — 

'* "We presume these delegates in some degree represent their 
constituents, and we are thereby encouraged and built up in the 
confidence that there arc other interests in Virginia to be seen to 
besides those pertaining to slavery." 

A uon-slaveholding Southron, in the course of a commu- 
nication in a more recent number of the same journal, 
says : — 

" We are taxed to support slavery. Tlie clean cash goes out 
of our own pockets into the pockets of the slaveholder, and this 
in many ways. I will now allude to but two. If a slave, for 
crime, is put to death or transported, the owner is paid for him 
out of the public treasury, and under this law thousands are paid 
' out evary 3'ear. Again, a standing army is kept up in the city of 
Richmond for no other purpose than to be ready to quell insur- 
rection among the slaves ; this is paid for out of the public trea- 
sury annually, f This standing army is called the public guard, 
but it is no less a standing army always kept up. We will quote 
from the acts of 1850 the expense of these two items to the State, 
on the 23d and 24th pages of the act? : — ' T» pay for slaves exe- 
cuted and transported, !$22,000 ;' ' to the public guard at Rich- 
mond, S24.000.- This, be it noticed, is only for one year, tiak- 



FACTS AND AR(;UMENTS BY THE VAY3IDE. ofiO 

ing near f^50,000 for these two oljocts in one year; Jut it can 
be shown by the present unequal plan of taxation between slave 
property and other property, that this is but a small item of our 
cash pocketed by the slaveholders ; and yet some will say wo 
have no reason to complain." 

The editor of the AVheeling Gazette publishes the follow- 
itjg as his platform on the slavery question : — 

*' Allying ourself to neither North nor South, on our own hook 
we adopt the following platform as our platform on this question, 
from which we never have and never will recede. We may fall 

on it, but WILL NEVER LEAVE IT. 

The severance of the General Government from slavery. 

J%e REPEAL of the fug-itive slave law. 

The REPEAL of the Nebraska Kansas Bill. 

No more slave territories. 

The purchase and manumission of slaves in the District 
OF Columbia, or the removal of the seat of government to 
free territory." 

Says the Baltimore Clipper: — 

' The South is contending for, and the North against, the ex- 
tension of slavery into the territories ; but we do not think that 
either side would consent to dissolve the Union about the negro 
population — a population which we look upon as a curse to the 
nation, and should rejoice to see removed to their native climo 
of Africa." 

The Naticynal Era, one of the best papers in the countiy, 
published in Washington City, P. C, says : — 

"The tendency of slavery to difiuse itself, and to crowd out 
free labor, was early observed by American patriots, North and 
South ; and Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Republicanism, 
made an effort, in 1784, to cut short the encroaching tide of bar- 
baric despotism, by prohibiting slavery in all the territories of 

IG* 



{570 FACTS AXD ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

the Union, down to thirty-one degrees of latitude, which was 
then our Southern boundary. His beneficent purpose failed, not 
for want of a decisive majority of votes present in the Congress 
of the Confederation, but in consequence of the absence of the 
delegates from one or two States, which were necessary Lo the 
constitutional majority. When the subject again came up, in 
1787, Mr. Jefferson was Minister to France, and the famous ordi 
nance of that year was adopted, prohibiting slavery North and 
West of the Ohio river. Between 1784 and 1787, the strides of 
slavery westward, into Tennessee and Kentucky, had become too 
considerable to admit of the policy of exclusion ; and besides 
those regions were then integral parts of Virginia and North 
Carolina, and of course they could not be touched without the 
consent of those States. In 1820, another effort was made to ar- 
rest the progress of slavery, which threatened to monopolize the 
whole territory west of the Mississippi. In the meantime the 
South had apostatized from the faith of Jefferson. It had ceased 
to love universal liberty, and the growing importance of the cot- 
ton culture had caused the people to look with indifference upon 
the moral deformity of slavery ; and, as a matter of course, the poli- 
ticians became its apologists and defenders. After a severe strug- 
gle a compromise was agreed upon, by which Missouri was to be 
admitted with slavery, which was the immediate point in contro- 
versy ; and slavery was to be excluded from all the territory 
North and West of that State. 

" We have shown, from the most incontestable evidence, that 
there is in slave society a much greater tendency to diffuse itself 
into new regions, than belongs to freedom, for the reason that it 
has no internal vitality. It cannot live if circumscribed, and 
must, like a consumptive, be continually roving for a change of 
air to recuperate its wasting energies." 

In the Missouri Legislature, in January, 185t, Mr. Brown, 

\ of St. Louis, proved himself a hero, a p atriot, and a statcs- 

\ man, in the following words : — 
\ 

" I am a Free-Soiler and I don't deny it. No word or vote of 

mine shall ever inure to the benefit of such a monstrous doctrine 



\ 




FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 371 

a-, the extension of Slavery over the patrimony of the free ".vhile 
laborers of the country. I am for the greatest f^ood of the 
greatest number, and against the system which monopolizes th- 
free and fertile territory of our country for a ^cvr slaveholders, 
to the exclusion of thousands upon thousands of the sinevry sons 
of toil. The time will come, and perhaps very soon, when tlie 
people will rule for their own benefit aJi-J not for that of a clans 
which, numerically speaking, is insignijicant. I stand here in 
the midst of the assembled Legislatuiv of Missouri to avow my- 
self a Free-Suiler. Let those who are scared at names shrink 
from the position if they will. I shall take my stand in favor of 
the white man. Here in Missouri I shall support the rights, the 
dignity and the welfare of the 800,000 non-slaveholders in pre- 
ference to upholding and perpttuating the dominancy of the 
SOjOUO slaveholders who inhabit our State." 

TPie St. Louis Deinocrat, in an editorial article, under 
date of January 28, 1857, entitled itself to the favorable 
regard of every true lover of liberty, by talking thus bold- 
ly on the subject of the " Emancipation of Slavery in 
Missouri" : — 

"Viewing the question as a subject of State policy, we will ven- 
ture to say that it is the grandest ever propounded to the people. 
If it were affirmed in a constitutional convention, and thoroughly 
carried out without any violation of vested rights, Missouri, in a 
few years subsequent to its consummation, would be the fore- 
most State on the American continent. Population would flow- 
in from all ^ides were the barrier of negro slavery once removed, 
and in place of 80,000 slaves, we should have 800,000 white men, 
which, in addition to the population we would have at that time, 
would give us at once an aggregate of two millions. 

Is Missouri ambitious of political power? — a power which is 
Flipping away from the South. The mode of acquiring it is 
found. We are not rash enough to attempt a description of our 
condition if the element of free labor were introduced. The 
earth would give up its hidden treasures at its bidding as the sea 



312 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE '^AVSIDE. 

will give up its dead ; and the soil would bloom more luxui antly 
than if it drank the dews of Hermon nightly ; ten thousand 
keels would vex our rivers, towns along their banks would grow 
into cities, and St. Louis would soon unite in itself the attributes 
of the greatest commercial manufacturing and literary metrop(»rus 
in the world. Let it be remembered that we have every inani- 
mate element of wealth and power within our limits, and tnai 
we require only labor — free labor — for we need not say that servile 
labor is inadequate. * * * 

There need be no pernicious agitation, and even if there 
should, it is the penalty which we cannot avoid paying at some 
time ; and it is easier to pay it now, than in the future. Who 
that watches passing events and indications, is not sensible of 
the fact that great internal convulsions await the slave States ? 
Better to grapple with the danger in time, if danger there be, 
and avert it, than wait until it becomes formidable. One thing 
is certain, or history is no guide : that is, that slavery cannot be 
perpetuated anywhere. An agitation now would be the effort 
of the social system to throw off a disease which had not 
touched its vitals ; hereafter it would be the struggle for life 
with a mortal sickness. But we do not apprehend any agita- 
tion more violent than has been forced upon us for years by the 
pro-slavery politicians. Agitating the slavery question, has 
been their constant business, and nothing worse has resulted 
from it than their elevation to office — no very trifling evil, by 
the way — and the temporary subjugation of Kansas. 

Besides, we know that all the free States emancipated theii 
slaves, and England and France theirs suddenly ; and we havf 
yet to learn that a dangerous agitation arose in any instance." 

In addition to all this, it is well known, and we thank 
Heaven for the fact and for the indication, that, at the 
election held for Mayor of St. Louis, in April, 1851, the 
Abolition candidate, himself a native of Virginia, was 
triumphantly elevated to the chief magistracy of the city. 
Three cheers for St. Lonis ! nine for Missouri ! thirteen 
for the South I 



"ACTS AND ARGl-MEXTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 373 

In reference to the late election in St. Louis, in which 
the Emancipation party triumplied, the Wlieelin^j (Va.) 
Intelligencer says : — 

"These elections do demonstrate tliis fact, beyond a cavil, that 
the sentiment of the great majority of the people of this Union 
is irrevocably opposed to the extension of slavery ; that they are 
determined, if overwhelming public sentiment can avail anvthing. 
another slave State shall not be admitted into the confederacy. 
And why are they so determined? Because they believe, and 
nut only believe, but see and know, that slavery is an unmiti- 
gated curse to the soil that sustains it. They know this, because 
they see every free State outstripping every slave State in all the 
elements that make a people powerful and prosperous ; because 
they see the people in the one educated and thrifty, and in the 
other ignorant and tliriftless ; because they have before their eyes 
a State like our own, once the very Union itself almost in impor- 
tance, to-day taking her rank as a fifth rate power." 

Non-slaveholders of the South I fail not to support the 
paper's — the Southern papers — that support your interests. 
Chief amongst those papers are the St. Louis (Mo.) Demo- 
crat, the National Era, published in Washington City, D. 
C, the Baltimore Clipper, the Wheeling (Va.") Intelligencer, 
and the Wellsburg (Va.) Herald. 

A RIGHT FEELING IX THE RIGHT QUARTER. 

'Tliere is but one way for the oligarchy to perpetuate 
slavery in the Southern States, and that is by perpetuating 
absolute ignorance among the non-slaveholding whites. 
This it is quite impossible for them to do. God has scat- 
tered the seeds of knowledge throughout every portion of 
the South, and they are, as might have been expected, be- 
ginning to take ro(r in her fertile soil. The following ex 



374 FACTS ANB ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

tracts from letters which have been received since we 
commenced writing this work, will show how powerfully 
the spirit of freedom is operating- upon the minds of intel- 
ligent, thinking men in the slave States. 

A Baltimorean, writing to us awhile previous to the 
last Presidential election, says : — 

" I see that the Trustees of the University of North Carolina 
have dismissed Prof. Hedrick for writing a letter in favor of Re- 
publican principles. Oh, what an inglorious source of reflection 
for an American citizen ! To think, to know that our boasted 
liberty of speech is a myth, an abstraction. To see a poor pro- 
fessor crushed under the feetof the t3'rannical magnates of slavery, 
for daring to speak the honest sentiments of his heart. "Vyhere 
is fanaticism now, North or South ? Oh, my country, my coun- 
try, whither art thou tending ? Truly we have fallen upon 
degenerate days. God grant that they may not be like those 
of ancient Greece and Rome, the forerunners of onr country's 
ruin." 

In a letter under date of November 1, 1856, a friend 
who resides in the eastern part of North Carolina, 
says : — 

"' In the papers which reached me last week I notice that our 
own State has been disgraced by a junto of pro-slavery hot-spurs, 
who had the audacity to meet in Raleigh for the express purpose 
of concocting measures for a dissolution of the Union. It appears 
that the three leading spirits of this cabal weie the present gov- 
ernors of three neighboring States — three treasonable disturbers 
of the public peace, who, under the circumstances, should, in my 
opinion, have been shot dead upon the spot ! I have each of 
their names noted down in my memorandum, and I shall cer- 
tainly die unsatisfied, if I do not live to hear of their being tho- 
roughly tarred and feathered, and ridden on a rail, by the non- 
sjlavehoMing whites, against whose welfare their machinations 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WA\5IDE. SjO 

hare been chiefly leveled. Rely upon it, that, if they do not soon 
sneak away into their graves, a day of retributive justice will 
most assuredly overtake them." 

A native and resident of one of the towns in western 
North Carolina, under date of March 19, 185t, writes tu u.- 
as follows : — 

•' While patrolling a few nights ago I was forcibly struck with 
the truthfulness of the remarks contained in your last letter. — 
Here T am, a poor but sober and industrious man, with a family 
dependent on me for support, and after I have finished my day's 
labor, I am compelled to walk the streets from nine in the even- 
ing till three in the morning, to restrain the roving propensities 
of other people's 'property' — niggers. Why should I thus be 
deprived of sleep that the slaveholder may slumber ? I frankly 
acknowledge my indebtedness to you for opening my eyes upon 
this subject. The more I think and see of slavery the more I de- 
test it. * * * I am becoming restless, and have been debat- 
ing within my own mind whether I had not better emigrate to a 
free State. * * * If I live, I am determined to oppose slavery 
somewhere — here or elsewhere. It will be impossible for me to 
keep my lips sealed much longer. Indeed, I sometimes feel that 
I have been remiss in my duty in not having opened them ere 
now. But for the unfathomable ignorance that pervades the mass 
of the poor, deluded, slavery- saddled whites around me, I would 
not suppress my sentiments another hour." 

Again, under date of April t, 1851, he says : — 

" I thank God that slavery will, in my opinion, soon be abol- 
ished. I wish to Heaven I had the ability to raise my voice suc- 
cessfully in favor of a just system to abolish it, I would indeed 
be rejoiced to have an opportunity to do something to relieve 
the South of the awful curse. Fear not that you will meet with 
no sympathizers in the South. You will have hosts of friends on 
every side — even in this towji. if I am not greatly mistaken, a 



376 FAi^rS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAVSIDE, 

large majority of the citizens will add an enthusiastic Amen! to 
ycur work." 

We might furnish similar extracts tVuin other letters, 
but these, we think, are quite sufficient to show that the 
millennium of freedom is rapidly dawning throughout the 
benighted regions of slavery. Coveted events are happen- 
ing in charming succession. All we have to do is to wait 
and work a little longer. 

THE ILLITER.\TE rOOR WHITES OF THE SOUTH, 

Had we the power to sketch a true picture of life 
among the non-slaveholding whites of the South, every in- 
telligent man who has a spark of philanthropy in his breast, 
and who should happen to gaze upon the picture,^^ould 
burn with unquenchable indignation at that system of Afri- 
Ican slavery which entails unutterable miseries on the supe- 
rior race. It is quite impossible, however, to describe accu- 
rately the deplorable ignorance and squalid poverty of the 
class to which we refer. The serfs of Russia liave reason 
to congratulate themselves that they are neither the 
negroes nor the non-slaveholding whites of the South. 
Than the latter there can be no people in Christendom 
more unhappily situated.- Below will be found a few 
extracts which will throw some light on the subject now 
under consideration. 

Says William Gregg, in an address delivered before the 
South Carolina Institute, in 1851 : — • 

'• From the best estimates that I have been able to make. I 
put down the white people who ought to work, and wlio lo not. 



FACTS AXD ARGUaIENTS BY THE VAYSIDE. 37 T 

or who are so employed as to be v.holly unproductive to the 
State, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand. Any man who 
is an observer of things could hardly pass through our country, 
without being struck with the fact that all the capital, enter- 
prise, and intelligence, is employed in directing slave labor ; and 
the consequence is, that a large portion of our poor white people 
are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an exist- 
ence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the 
forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change 
in public sentiment will effect its cure. These people must be 
brought into daily contact with the rich and intelligent — they . 
must be stimulated to mental action, and taught to appreciate 
education and the comforts of civilized life ; and this, we believe, 
may be effected only by the introduction of manufactures. My 
experience at Graniteville has satisfied me that unless our poor 
people can bo brought together in villages, and some means of 
employment afforded them, it will be an utterly hopeless effort to 
undertake to educate them. We have collected at that place 
about eight hundred people, and as likely looking a set of coun- 
try girls as may be found — industrious and orderly people, but 
deplorably ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not being able to 
read or to write their own names. 

•• It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of 
shanties, in a healthy location, in any part of the State, to have 
crowds of these people around you, seeking employment at half 
the compensation given to operatives at the North. It is indeed 
painful to be brought in contact with such ignorance an I degra- 
dation." 

Again he asks : — 

" Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ig norant, 
degraded white people among us, who, in this land of olenty, 
live in comparative nakedness and starvation? Many a one is 
reared in proud South Carolina, from birfli to manhood, who 
has never passed a month in which he has not, some part of the 
time, been stinted for meat. Many a mother is there who will 
tell you that her children are but scantily provided with l.ri;i<I, 



"x 



378 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE 

and much more scantily with meat ; and, if they be clad with com- 
fortable raiment, it is at the expense of these scanty allowances 
of food. These may be startling statements, but they are never- 
thelef s true ; and if not believed in Charleston, the members of 
our legislature who have traversed the State in electioneering 
campaigns can attest the truth." 

In an article on " Manufactures in South Carolina,^^ pub- 
lished some time ago in DeBeui's Review, J. H. Taylor, of 
Charleston (S. C.) says : — 

" There is in some quarters, a natural jealousy of the slightest 
innovation upon established habits, and because an effort has 
been made to collect the poor and unemployed white population 
into our new factories, fears have arisen that some evil would 
grow out of the introduction of such establishments among 
us. * * * The poor man has a vote as well as the rich man, 
and in our State the number of the former will largely overbalance 
the latter. So long as these poor but industrious people can see no 
mode of living except by a degrading operation of work with the 
negro upon the plantation, they will be content to endure life in 
its most discouraging forms, satisfied that they are abovj the 
slave, though faring often worse than he." 

Speaking in favor of manufactures, the Hon. J. H. 
Lumpkin, of Georgia, said in 1852 : — 

" It is objected that these manufacturing establishments will 
become the hot -beds of crime. But I am by no means ready to 
concede that our poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and 
ignorant population — without Sabbath Schools, or any other 
kind of instruction, mental or moral, or without any just appre- 
ciation of character — will be injured by giving them employment, 
which will bring them under the oversight of employers, who 
will inspire them with self-respect by taking an interest in theii 
welfare. * * 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 379 

In a paper on the " Extension of Cotton and Woo, Facto- 
ries at the South," Mr. Steadman, of Tennessee, says : — 

" In Lowell, labor is paid the fair compensation of 80 cents a 
day for men, and ^2 a week fo*- women, besido board, while in 
Tennessee the average compensation for labor does not exceed 50 
cents per day for men, and ^1.25 per week for women." 

In the course of a speech which he delivered in CongTess 
several years ago, Mr. T. L. Clingman, of North Carolina, 
said : — % 

" Our manufacturing establishments can obtain the raw mate- 
rial (cotton) at nearly two cents on the pound cheaper than the 
New-England establishments. Labor is likewise one hundred 
per cent, cheaper. In the upper parts of the State, the labor of 
either a free man or a slave, including board, clothing, &c., cai 
be obtained for from SI 10 to S120 per annum. It will cost at 
least twice that sum in New-England. The difference in the cost 
of female labor, whether free or slave, is even greater." 

The Richmond (Ya.) Dispatch says : — 

" AVe will only suppose that the ready-made shoes imported 
into this city from the North, and sold here, were manufactured 
in Richmond. What a great addition it would be to the means 
of emplovment 1 How many boys and females would find the 
means of'earning their bread, who are now suffering for a regular 
Bupply of the necessaries of life." 

A citizen of New-Orleans, writing in DeBow's Review 

eays : — 

" At present the sources of employment open to females (save 
m menial offices) are very limited ; and an inability to procure 
suitable occupation is an evil much to be deplored, as tending n, 
its consequences to produce demoralization. The superior gra'l. s 
of female laboi may be considered such as imply a necessity foi 



S80 FACTS AND ARGl M N'TS BY THE WAYSIDE 

education on the part of the employee, while the menial <.'Iass is 
generally regarded as of the lowest ; and in a slave State, this 
'standard is ' in the lowest depths, a lower deep,' from the fact, 
that, by association, it is a reduction of the white servant to the 
luvel of their colored fellow-menials." 

Black slave labor, though far less valuable, is almost 
invariably better paid than free white labor. The reason 
as this : The fiat of the oligarchy has made it fashionable to 
" have negroes aroundJ and there are, wc are grieved to 
say, many non-slaveholding whites, (lickspittles,) who, in 
order to retain on their premises a hired slave whom they 
falsely imagine secures to them not only the appearance 
of wealth, but also a position of high social standing in 
the community, keep themselves in a perpetual strait. 

Last Spring we made it our special business to ascertain 
the ruling rates of wages paid for labor, free and slave, in 
North Carolina. We found sober, energetic white men, 
between twenty and forty years of age, engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits at a salary of $84 per annum — including 
board only ; negro men, slaves, who performed little more 
than half the amount of labor, and who were exceedingly 
sluggish, awkward, and careless in all their movements, 
were hired out on adjoining farms at an average of about 
$115 per annum, including board, clothing, and medical 
attendance. Free white men and slaves were in the em- 
ploy of the North Carolina Railroad Company ; the former, 
whose services, in our opinion, were at least twice as val- 
uable as the. services of the latter, received only $12 per 
month each ; the masters of the latter received $16 per 
month for evevj slave so employed. Industrious, tidy 



A 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE VAY3IDE. 381 

white girls, from sixteen to twenty years of age, had much 
difficulty in hiring themselves out as domestics in private 
families for $10 per annum — board only included ; negro 
wenches, Glavep, of corresponding ages, so ungraceful, 
Htupid and ^lUhy that no decent man would ever permit 
nne of them to cross the threshold of his dwelling, were in 
brisk demand at from $65 to $70 per annum, including 
victual?,, clothes, and medical attendance. These are facts, 
and in considering them, the students of political and so- 
cial economy will not fail to arrive at conclusions of their 
ow^n. ' 

Notwithstanding the greater density of population in 
the free States, labor of every kind is, on an average, about 
one hundred per cent, higher there than it is in the slave 
States. This is another important hid, and one that every 
non-slaveholding white should keep registered in his mind. 

Poverty, ignorance, and superstition, are the three lead- 
ing characteristics of the non-slaveholding whites of the 
South. Many of them grow up to the age of maturity, and 
pass through life without ever owning as much as five 
dollars at aijy one time. Thousands of them die at an ad- 
vanced age, as ignorant of the common alphabet as if it 
had never been inventsd. All are more or less impressed 
with a belief in witches, ghosts, and supernatural signs. 
Few are^xempt from habits of sensuality and intemperance. 
None have anything like adequate ideas of the duties 
which they owe either to their God, to themselves, or to 
their fellow-men. Pitiable, indeed, in the fullest sense of 
the term, is their condition. 

It is the almost utter lack of an education that has re- 



382 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 



duced them to their present unenviable situation. In the 
whole South there is scarcely a publication of any kind 
devoted to their interests. They are now completely un- 
der the domination of the oligarchy, and it is madness to 
suppose that they will ever be able to rise to a position of 
true manhood, until after the slave power shall have been 
utterly overthrown. 



aOUTIIERN LITERATURE. 3Sil 



CMI A VTKR XI. 



SOUTH KRN I.ITKRATURE. 



Ir is witL some dcp^rcc f)f lioien'tation thai m e add a cliap 
ter ou Soutlicrn Literature — not that the theme is inap- 
propriate to this work ; still less, that it is an unfruitful 
one ; but our hesitation results from our conscious inabil- 
ity, in the limited time and space at our command, to do 
the subject justice. Few, except those whose experience 
has taught them, have any adequate idea of the amount 
of preparatory labor requisite to the production of a work 
into which the statistical element largely enters ; espe- 
cially is this so, when the statistics desired are not readi- 
ly accessible through public and official documents. The 
author who lionestly aims at entire accuracy in his state- 
ments, may find himself baffled for weeks in his pursuit 
of a single item of information, not of much importance in 
itself perhaps, when separately considered, but necessary 
in its connection with others, to the completion of a har- 
monious whole. Not unfrequently, during the preparation 
of the preceding pages, have we been subjected to this 
delay and annoyance. 

The following brief references to the protracted prepar. 
^ atory labors and inevitable delays to whid-i authors are 



381 soirrnr-RN literature. 

8ul)jr('t(Ml, may iiitercat our roadora, and induce them tc ' 
rcp^anl willi charity any dclicioncioa, citlicr in detail or in 
gciKMJil arran;;(Mii('iit, wliii'Ii, owin*:^ to the ncccasary haato 
of preparation, thoHo conchiding paj^os of our work may 
exhibit : 

(M)hi.smini was (Mi;j,'M^*('d nine yearn in tlie preparation 
of "V'/w' V'/v/rr/Av," and live* yearn in p^atherinj;* and arraiijj^- 
iii;:;' (h{^ ineiiU'nts of his *' JJcscrtal \'i//(jge" and two years 
in th(nr verKilieation. 

Ihinerofl, (he Anioriean Historian, lias IxH^n more thiin 
thirty years (Mip^'ap^ed upon his History of the United States, 
fVdin Ills projrilion of th(^ work to the i)re8ent date ; and 
that llislory is not yet completed. 

llildrelli, a no less eminent historian, fnwn th(^ time lie 
l)e};-an to colh'et mfitt^rials for his History of ,tlie United 
States to the date of its completion, devoted no less tlian 
t\v<Mity-riV(» years to the work. 

W« lishM-, our <;'r(Mit lexicop^rapluM", p^ave tliirty-five years 
of his lile in l>rin<;in^ his Unabridginl Dictionary of the 
English Language to the degree of accuracy and complete- 
ness in which we now lind it. 

Dr. .lolm W. Mason, after \vi\ years* labor in the aeeu- 
inulation of matcMials for a Life of Alexander Hamilton 
was comi)elled to relincpiish the work on aceoutit of im- 
paired health. 

Mr. James Haidvs, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who 
recently delivered a lecture upon the Life and (Character of 
Flora Mt'Dona'd, was eigliteen years in the collection ol 
his materials. 



"ATTTIIKUN MTKRATURK. ,^85 

OalibiohclT, ii diHtiiiguiHlicd Kusaian author, Hpont Iwcnty- 
fivo years in writirif^ tlio Lifo of AEozart. 

ExainploH of lliis kind mi^^lit 1)0 Timlliplicd to an almost 
iudofiiiitc cxl(Mit. Indeed, ahnosl. all Um poets, pnmo 
writcrs, painters, soul [) tors, composers, and otiier devotees 
of Art, wlio liavo won undying fame for themselves, have 
donr; so throu^^h long years ol" earnest and almost nnn;- 
mitled toil. 

Wc are quite conscious that the fulliiess and aecuraey 
of statem(;nt whii^h are desirable in this chapter cannot bo 
attained in the brief time allow(!d us for its completion ; 
but, tliou^^h much will necessarily bo omitted that ought 
to bo sai(i, we shall endeavor to make no statement of 
facts which arc not well auth(;nticated, and no inferenccg 
from the same whitli are not logically true. Wc can only 
pronn'sc to do the bent in oiir power, witli the materials at 
our command, to exiiibit the; inevitable influence of slavery 
upon Souihern Literature, and to demonstrate that the aC'- 
cursed institution so cherished by the oligarchy, is no less 
prejudicial to our advancement in letters, than it is destruc- 
tive of our material prosperity. 

What is the actual condition of Literature at tlie South ? 
Our question includes uumi than simple authorship in the 
various departments of letters, from the compilation of a 
primary reader to the production of a Scientific or Theo- 
logical Treatise. We comprehend in it all the activities 
engaged in the creation, publicatiorj, and sale of books 
and periodicals, from the penny primer to the heavy folio, 
ajid from the dingy, coars(!-typ('d weekly paper, to the 
'argo, well-filUjd daily. 

n 



386 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

It were unjust to deny a degree of intcUectua ictiritj 
to the South. It has produced a few good authors — a few 
competent editors, and a moderately largo number of 
clever magazlnists, paragraphists, essayists and critics 
Absolutely, then, it must be conceded that the South has 
something that may be called a literature j it is only when 
we speak of her in comparison with the North, that we say, 
with a pardonably strong expression, " The South has no 
literature." This was virtually admitted by more than one 
speaker at the late " Southern Convention" at Savannah. 
Said a South Carolina orator on that occasion : " It is im- 
portant that the South should luive a Ktoraturc of her own, 
to defend her principles and her rights ;" a sufncicntly 
plain concession that she has not, now, such a literature. 
J^ut fads speak more significantly than the rounded periods 
of Convention orators. Let us look at facts, then. 

First, turning our attention to the periodical literature 
of the South, we obtain these res-ults : By the census of 
1850, we ascertain that the entire number of periodicals, 
daily, semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly and 
quarterly, published in the slave States, including the Dis^ 
trict of Columbia, were seven hundred and twenty-two. 
These had an aggregate yearly circulation of ninety-two 
million one hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred 
and twenty-nine. (92,167,129). The number of periodicals, 
of every class, published in the non-slaveholding States 
(exclusive of California) was one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-three, with an aggregate yearly circulation of 
three hundred and thirty-three million thrce hundred and 
eighty-six thousand and eighty-one. (333,386,081). 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 887 

We are awai e that there may be inaccuracies in the fore- 
going estimates ; but the compilers of the census, not we, 
are responsible for them. Besides, the figures are unques- 
tionably as fair for the South as for the Nortli ; we accept 
them, therefore, as a just basis of our comparisons. Nearly 
seven years have elapsed since these statistics were taken, 
and these seven years have WTOught an immense change 
in the journalism of the North, without any corresponding 
change in that of the South. It is noteworthy that, as a 
general thing, the principal journals of the free States are 
more comprehensive in their scope, more complete in every 
department, and enlist, if not a higher order of talent, at 
least more talent, than they did seven years ago. This im* 
provemcnt extends not only to the metropolitan, but to the 
country papers also. In fact, the very highest literary 
ability, in finance, in political economy, in science, in sta- 
tism, in law, in theology, in medicine, in the belles-lettres, 
is laid under contribution by the journals of the non-slave- 
holding States. This is true only to a very limited degree 
of Southern journals. Their position, with but few excep- 
tions, is substantially the same that it was ten years ago. 
They are neither worse nor better — the imbecility and in- 
ertia which attaches to everything which slavery touches, 
clings to them now as tenaciously as it did when Henry 
A. Wise thanked God for the paucity of newspapers in the 
Old Dominion, and the platitudes of " Father" Ritchie were 
recognized as the political gospel of the South. They have 
not, so far as we can learn, increased materially in number, 
nor in the aggregate of their yearly circulation. In the 
free States no week passes that vloos not add to the num- 



388 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

ber of their journals, md extend the circle of their readers 
and their influence. Since the census tables to which we 
have referred were prepared, two of the many excellent 
weekly journals of which the city of New-York can boast, 
have sprung into being, and attained an agg-regate circu- 
lation more than twice as large as that of the entire news- 
paper press of Virginia in 1850 — and exceeding, by some 
thousands, the aggregate circulation of the two hundred 
and fifty journals of which Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, 
Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, could boast at the 
time above-mentioned. 

In this connection, we beg leave to introduce the fol- 
luv/ing letter, kindly furni^ied us by the proprietors of 
the N. y. Tribune, in answer to enquiries which we ad- 
dressed to them :— 

Tribune Office. New York, > 
30th May, 1857. $ 

Mr. II. K. Hkm'ER, 

Sir:— 
In answer to 3-our inquiry we inform you that we employ in 
our building one hundred and seventy-six persons regularly: 
this does not include our carriers and cartmen, nor does it include 
the men employed in the Job OfiBce in our building. During 
the past year we have used in printing The Tribune, Forty-four 
thousand nine hundred and seventy nine (44,979) reams of paper 
weighing two million three hundred and ten thousand one 
hundred and thirty (2,310,1 30) pounds. We pubHsh one hundred 
and seventy-six thousand copies of our weekly edition, which 
g;oes to press, the second form, at 7 1-2 o'clo ik, A. M. and is 
finished at 2 A. M. the next m.oruing. Our mailers require 
eighteen to nineteen hours to mail our "Weekly, which makes 
from thirty to hirt^'-two cart loads. 

Very respectfully, 

Greeley & McElrath. 



I 



SOUTHERN LITERATUIiE, 389 

Throughout the non-slaveholding States, the newspapei 
or magazine that has not improved during the last decade 
of years, is an exception to the general rule. Throughout 
the entire slaveholding States, the newspaper or maga- 
zine that has improved during that time, is no less an 
exception to the general rule that there obtains. Outside 
of the larger cities of the South, there are not, probably, 
half a dozen newspapers in the whole slaveholding region 
that can safely challenge a comparison with the country- 
press of the North. What that country-press was twenty 
years ago, the country-press of the South is now. 

We do not deny that the South has produced able jour- 
nalists ; and that some of the newspapers of her princi- 
pal cities exhibit a degree of enterpriso and talent that can- 
not fail to command for them the respect of all intelligent 
men. But these journals, we regret to say, are mai'ked 
exceptions to the general condition of the Southern press ; 
and even the best of these fall far below the standard of ex- 
cellence attained by the leading journals of the North. In 
fact, whether our comparison embraces quantity only, or 
extends to both quantity and quality, it is found to be 
immeasurably in favor of the non-slaveholding States, 
which in journalism, as in all other industrial pursuits, 
leave their slavery-cursed competitors at an infinite dis- 
tance behind them, and thus vindicate the superiority of 
free institutions, which, recognizing labor as honorable, 
secure its rewards for all. 

The literary vassalage of the South to the North con- 
stitutes in itself a most significant commentary'- upon the 
diatribes of tho former concerning " a purely Southern 



890 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

literatnio." To begin at ilio beginning — tho Alpliabetical 
HloclcH anil Eibicalional tables from which our Southern 
abecedarian takes his initial IcHson, were projected and 
inanufactunMl in tlie Norlli. CJoiiig forward a step, \vo 
find the yonni^ling ititent in spelling short sentences, or 
gratifying I»is Juvenile fondness for the fine arts by copy- 
ing tho wood-cuts from his Nortliern primer. Yetanotlier 
step, and we discover him with liis Sanders' Reader, his 
Mitchell's Geography, his Emerson's Arithmetic, all pro- 
duced by Northern mind and Northern enterprise. There 
is nothing xcroiig in this ; it is only a little ridiculous in 
view of tho fulminations of tho Southern })roslavery press 
against tho North. Occasionally however we arc amused 
by tho etlorts of the oHgarclis to make tluMr own school- 
books, or to root out of all educational text-books every 
rcfercMici^ to tho ])estilentinl luM'csy of freedom. A " gen- 
tliMuan" in C'liarleston, S. C. is devoting his energies to 
the prejiaration of a series of pro-slavery elementary works, 
consisting of primers, readers, &,c. -and lo 1 they arc all 
printed, stitched and bound north of Mason and Dixon's 
lino 1 A single /cjf^ like this is suflicient to overturn whole 
folios of treaty concerning tlx^ divinity of slavery. Tho 
truth is, that, not school-books alone, but works of almost 
every class produced by the South, depend upon Northern 
enteri>rise and skill for their introduction to tho public 
Mr. PeHow, the eminent Statistician, publishes a Southern 
Review, purporting to be issued from New Orleans. It 
is printed and bound in the city of New York. AVo clip 
the following paragraj)!! from a recent number of tho 
Vicksburgh (Miss.) IMtig : — 



SOUTHEUN' UTERATURR. 391 

-SournKKN i'.Ni KKruizE. — Even the Mississippi Legislature, 
at its late sesfcion allowed its laws to go to Boston to be printed, 
and made an appropriation of J}$3,000 to pay one of its members 
to go there and read the proof sheets instead of having it done 
in the State, and thereby assisting in building up a Southern 
publishing house. "What a commentary on the Yankee-haters !" 

The Greensboro (N. C.) Patriot thus records a similar 
contribution, on the part of that State, to " the creation of 
a purely Southern Literature :" 

" We have heard it said, that those who had the control 
of the printing of the revised Statutes of North Carolina, iu 
order to save a few dimes, had the work executed in Boston, in 
preference to giving the job to a citizen of this State. Wo 
impugn not the motives of the agents in this matter ; but it is a 
Vitih humiliating that no work except the commonest labor, can 
be done in North Carolina ; that everything which requires a little 
skill, capital, or ingenuity, mast be sent North. In the case under 
consideration, we have heard it remarked, that wlien the whole 
bill of expenses connected with the printing of the Revised 
Statutes in Boston was footed up, it only amounted to a few 
thousand dollars more than the job would have cost in this 
State. But then we have the consolation of knowing that 
the book came from the North, and that it was printed among 
the abolitionitits of Boston ; the -peculiar friends of North Carolina 
and the South generally.— Of course we ought to be willing to 
pay a few extra thousands in consideration of these important 
facts !" 

Southern divines give us elaborate " Bible Arguments ;" 
Southern statists heap treatise upon treatise through 
which the Federal Constitution is tortured into all mon- 
strous shapes ; Southern novelists bore us ad infLnllum 
with pictures of the beatitudes of plantation lift and the 
DGgro-quarters ; Southern verse- wrights drone out their 



892 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

d^'owsy dactyls or grow ventricous with their turgid heroics 
all in defence of slavery, — priest, politician, novelist, bard- 
ling, severally ringing the changes upon " the Biblical 
institution," " the conservative institution," " the human- 
izing institution," " the patriarchal institution" — and 
then — ^liave their books printed on Northern paper, with 
Northern types, by Northern artizans, stitched, bound and 
made ready for the market by Northern industry ; and 
yet fail to see in all this, as a true philosophical mind 
must see, an overwhelming refutation of their miserable 
sophisms in behalf of a system against which humanity 
in all its impulses and aspirations, and civilization in all 
its activities and triumphs, utter their perpetual protest. 
From a curious article in the "American Publishers 
Circular" on " Book Making in America," we give the fol 
lowing extracts : 

"It is somewhat alarming to know that the number of houses 
now actually engaged in the publishing of books, not including 
periodicals, amounts to more than three hundred. About three- 
fourths of these are engaged in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore — the balance being divided between Cincinnati, 
Buffalo, Auburn, Albany, Louisville, Chicago, St. Louis, and a 
few other places. There are more than three thousand book- 
sellers who dispense the publications of these three hundred, be- 
sides six or seven thousand apothecaries, grocers, and hardware 
dealers, who connect literature with drugs, molasses, and nails. 

'' The best printing in America is probably now done in Cam- 
bridge ; the best cloth binding in Boston, and the best calf and 
morocco in New-York and Philadelphia. In these two latter 
styles we are, as yet, a long distance from Heyday, the pride of 
London. His finish is supreme. There is nothing between it 
and perfection. 

" Books have multinlied to such an extent in our country, that 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 593 

it now takes 750 paper mills, with 2,000 engines in cons rant 
operation, to supply the printers, who work day and night, en- 
deavoring to keep their engagements with publishers. These 
tireless mills produced 270,000,000 pounds of paper the past year, 
which immense supply has sold for about ,<i$27,000,000. A pound 
and a quarter of rags were required for a pound of paper, and 
400,000.000 pounds were therefore consumed in this way last 
year. The cost of manufacturing a twelve months' supf ly of 
paper for the United States, aside from labor and rags, is com- 
puted at §4,000,000. * * * 

'=The Harper establishment, the largest of our publishing 
nouses, covers half an acre of ground. If old Mr. Caxion, who 
printed those stones of the Trojan war so long ago, could follow 
the Ex-Mayor of New-York in one of his morning rounds in 
Franklin Square, he would be, to say the least, a little surprised. 
He would see in one room the floor loaded with the weight of 
150 tons of presses. The electrotyping process would puzzle 
him somewhat ; the drying and pressing process would startle 
him ; the bustle would make his head ache ; and the stock-rouni 
would quite finish him. An edition of Harpers' Monthly Maga- 
zine alone consists of 175,000. Few persons have any idea how 
large a number this is as applied to the edition of a book. It is 
computed tliat if these magazines were to rain down, and one 
man should attempt to pick them up like chips, it would take 
him a fortnight to pick up the copies of one single number, sup- 
posing him to pick up one every second, and to work ten hours 

a da}°" 

'•The rapidity with which books are now manufactured is 
almost incredible. A complete copy of one of Bulwer's novels, 
published across the water in three volumes, and reproduced 
here in one, was swept through the press in New-York in fifty 
hours, and offered for sale smoking hot in the streets. The fabu- 
lous edifice proposed by a Yankee from Vermont, no longer seeTna 
an impossibility. 'Build the establishment according to my 
plan.' said he ; "' drive a sheep in at one end, and he shall imme- 
diately come out at the other, four quarters of lamb, a felt hat, <> 
leather apron, and a quarto Bible.' " 

n* 



894 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

The busi less of the Messrs. Harper, whose estallish- 
ment is referred to in the foregoing extract, is probably 
more generally diffused over every section of this country 
than that of any other publishing house. From enquiries 
recently made of them we learn that they issue, on an 
average, 3,000 bound volumes per day, throughout the year, 
and that each volume will average 500 pages — making a 
total of about one million of volumes, and not less than 
five hundred millions of pages per annum. This does not 
include the Magazine and books in pamphlet form, each 
of which contains as much matter as a bound volume. — 
Their bills for paper exceed $300,000 annually, and as the 
average cost is fifteen cents per pound, they consume 
more than two millions of pounds — say one thousand tons 
of white paper. 

There are regularly employed in their own premises 
about 550 persons, including printers, binders, engravers, 
and clerks. These are all paid in full once a fortnight in 
bankable money. Besides these, there are numerous au- 
thors and artists in every section of the country, who fur- 
nish manuscripts and illustrations, on terms generally 
satisfactory to all the parties interested. 

The Magazine has a monthly circulation of between 
115,000 and 200,000, or about two millions of copies annu- 
ally. Each number of the Magazine is closed up about 
the fifth of the month previous to its date. Three or four 
days thereafter the mailing begins, commencing with 
more distant subscribers, all of whom are supplied before 
any copies are sold for delivery in New-York. The inten- 
tion of the publishers is, that it shall be delivered as nearly 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 395 

• • 

as possibU on the same day in St. Louis, New-Orleans, 
Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New- York. It takes 
from ten to twelve days to dispatch the whole edition, 
(which weighs between four and five tons,) by mail and 
express. 

Their new periodical, " Harpers' Weekly," has, in a littlo 
more than four months, reached a sale of nearly 70,OOC 
copies. The mailing of this commences on Tuesday night, 
and occupies about three days. 

Ex-Mayor Harper, whom we have found to be one of 
the most afiable and estimable gentlemen in the city of 
New-York, informed us, sometime ago, that, though he had 
no means of knowing positively, he was of the opinion that 
about eighty per cent, of all their publications find final 
purchasers in the free States — the remainder, about twenty 
per cent., in the slave States. Yet it is probable that, with 
one or two exceptions, no other publishing house in the 
country has so large a per centage of Southern trade. 

Of the '* more than three hundred houses engaged in the 
publication of books," to which the writer in the "Ameri- 
can Publishers' Circular" refers, upwaids of nine-tenths of 
the number are in the non-slavcholding States, and these 
represent not less than ninety-nine hundredths of the 
whole capital invested in the business. Baltimore has 
twice as many publishers as any other Southern city ; and 
nearly as many as the whole South beside. The census 
returns of 1850 give but twenty-four publishers for the 
entire South, and ten of these were in Maryland. The 
relative disproportion which then existed in this branch 
of enterprise, betveen the North and the South, still 



39G ' SOUTHERN LITERATURK. 

exists ; or, if it lias been changed at all, that change is 
in favor of the North. So of all the capital, enterprise 
and industry involved in the manufactnre of the material 
that enters into the composition of books. All the paper 
manufactories of the South do not produce enough to sup- 
ply a single publishing house in the city of New-York. — 
Perhaps "a Southern Literature" does not necessarily in- 
volve the enterprises requisite to the mamifadure of books ; 
but experience has shown that there is a somewhat inti- 
mate relation between the author, printer, paper-maker 
and publisher ; in other words, that the intellectual activ- 
ity which expresses itself in books, is measurable by the 
mechanical activities engaged in their manufacture. — • 
Thus a State that is fruitful in authors will ahnost necessa- 
rily be fruitful in publishers ; and the number of both classes 
will be proportioned to the reading population. The pov- 
erty of Southern literature is legitimately shown, there- 
fore, in the paucity of Southern publishers. We do not 
deny a high degree of cultivated talent to the South ; we 
are familiar with the names of her sons whose genius has 
made them eminent ; all that we insist upon is, that the 
same accursed influence which has smitten her industrial 
enterprises with paralysis, and retarded indefinitely her 
material advancement, has exerted a corresponding influ- 
ence upon her literature. How it has done this we shall 
more fully indicate before we close the chapter. 

At the " Southern Convention" held some months since 
at Savannah, a good deal was said about " Southern liter- 
ature," and many suggestions made in reference to the 
best means for its promotion. One speaker thought that 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 397 

" they could get text-books at home without gohig to either 
Old England or New England for thein." Well — they can 
try. The effort will not harm them ; nor the North either. 
The orator w^as confident " that the South had talent enough 
to do anything that needs to be done, and independence 
enough to do it." The taleiii we shall not deny ; the indo- 
j^endence we are ready to believe in when we see it. When 
she throws off the incubus of slavery under which she goes 
staggering like the Sailor of Bagdad under the weight of 
the Old Man of the Sea, she will prove her independence, 
and demonstrate her ability " to do anything that needs to 
bo done." Till then she is but a fettered giant, whose 
vitals are torn by the dogs which her own folly has engen- 
dered. 

Another speaker, on the occasion referred to, half-uncon- 
Bciously it would seem, threw a gleam of light upon the 
subject under discussion, which, had not himself and hln 
hearers been bat-blind, would have revealed the clue tliat 
conducts from the darkness in which they burrow* to the 
day of redemption for the South. Said he : — 

'• Northern publishers employ the talent of the South and of 
the whole country to write for them, and pour out thousands an- 
nually for it ; but Southern men expect to get talent without 
paying for it. The Southern Quarterly Review and the Literary 
Messenger arc literally struggling fur existence, fur want of mate- 
rial aid. * * * It is not the South that buihls up Northern lit- 
erature — they do it themselves. There is talent and mind and 
poetic genius enough in the South to build up a literature of a 
higli order ; but Southern publishers cannot get money enough 
to assist them in their enterprise?, and. therefore, the South had 
no literature. 



398 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

Here are truths. " Southern men expect to get talent 
without paying for it." A very natural expectation, con- 
sidering that they have been accustomed to have all their 
material wants supplied by the uncompensated toil of their 
slaves. In this instance it may seem an absurd one, but 
it results legitimately from the system of slavery. That 
system, in fact, operates in a two-fold way against the 
Southern publishoi* : first, by its practical repudiation of 
the scriptural axiom that the laboreris w^orthy ofhishire ; 
and secondly, by restricting the circle of readers through 
the ignorance which it inevitably engenders. How is it 
that the people of the North build up their literature ? — 
Two words reveal the secret : intelligence — co?npcnsation. 
They are a reading people — the poorest artizan or day-laborer 
has his shelf of books, or his daily or weekly paper, whose 
contents he seldom fails to master before retiring at night ; 
and i/iey are accustomed to pay for all the hooks and papers which 
they peruse. Readers and payers — these are the men who 
insure the prosperity of publishers. Where a system of 
enforced servitude prevails, it is very apt to beget loose 
notions about the obligation of paying for an3'^thing ; and 
many minds fail to sec the distinction, morally, between 
compelling Sambo to pick cotton without paying him wa- 
ges, or compelling Lippincott & Co. to manufacture books 
for the planter's pleasure or edification upon the same lib- 
eral terms. But more than this — where a system of en- 
forced servitude prevails, a fearful degree of ignorance 
prevails also, as its necessary accompaniment. The en- 
slaved masses are, of course, thrust back from the fountains 
of knowledge by the strong arm of law, while the poor 



SOUTIIKHX MTKRATURE. 399 

non-slavcholding classes arc almost as cfTcctually excluded 
from the institutions of learning by their poverty— the 
sparse population of slaveholding districts being unfavor- 
able to the maintenance of free schools, and the exigencies 
of their condition forbidding them to avail themselves of 
any more costly educational privileges. 

Northern publishers can " employ the talent of the South 
and of the whole country to write for them, and pour out 
thousands annually for it," simply because a reading pop- 
ulation; accustomed io pay for the service which it receives, 
enables them to do so. A similar population at tlie South 
wouM enable Southern publishers to do the same. Substi- 
tute free labor for slave labor, the institutions of freedom 
for those of slavery, and it would not long remain true 
that " Southern publishers cannot get money enough to 
assist them in their enterprises, and therefore the South 
has no literature." This is the discovery which the South 
Carolina orator from whom we quote, but narrowly escaped 
making, when he stood upon its very edge, and rounded 
his perTods with the truths in whose unapprehended mean- 
ings was hidden this germ of redemption for a nation. 

The self-stultification of folly, however, was never more 
evident than it is in the current gabble of the oligarchs 
about a " Southern literature." They do not mean by it a 
healthy, manly, normal utterance of unfettered minds, 
without which there can be no proper literature ; but an 
emasculated substitute therefor, from whicli the element 
of freedom is eliminated ; husks, from which the kernel 
has escaped-a body, from which the vitalizing spirit ha. 
fled— a literature which ignores manhood by confoundmg 



400 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

it with brutehood ; or, at best, deals with all similes of 

freedom as treason against the "peculiar institution." 

There is not a single great name in the literary annals of 

the old or new world that could diawf itself to the stature 

requisite to gain admission into the Pantheon erected hy 

these devotees of the Inane for their Lilliputian deities. 

Thank God, a " Southern literature," in the sense intended 

by the champions of slavery, is a simple impossibilit}'', 

rendered such by that exility of mind which they demand 

in its producers as a prerequisite to admission into the 

guild of Southern authorship. The tenuous thoughts of 

such authorliugs could not survive a single breath of manly 

criticism. The history of the rise, progress, and decline of 

their literature could be easily written on a child's smootli 

palm, and leave space enough for its funeral oration and 

epitaph. The latter might appropriately be that which, 

in one of our rural districts, marks the grave of a still-born 

infant : — • 

•* If so early I am done for. 
I wonder what I was begun for !" 

We desire to sec the South bear its just proportion in 
the literary activities and achievements of our common 
country. It has never yet done so, and it never will until 
its own manhood is vindicated in the abolition of slavery. 
The impulse which such a measure would give to all in- 
dustrial pursuits that deal with the elements of material 
prosperity, would be imparted also to the no less valuable 
but more intangible creations of the mind. Take from the 
intellect of the South the incubus which now oppresses it, 
and its rebound would be glorious ; the era of its diviner 



SOUTHERN LITEKATURK. 401 

inspirations would begin ; and its triumphs would bo a 
perpetual vindication of the superiority of free institutions 
over those of slavery. 

To Duyckinck's " Cyclopedia of Amer'can Literature — a 
sort of Omnium-gather mn that reminds one of Jeremiah's 
figs — we are indebted for the following facts : The whole 
number of " American authors" whose place of nativity 
is given, is five hundred and sixty-nine. Of these sevent}^- 
nine were foreign born, eighty-seven were natives of the 
South, and four hundred and three — a vast majority of 
the whole, first breathed the vital air in the free North. 

a 

Many of those who were born in the South, received their 
education in the North, quite a number of whom became 
permanent residents thereof. Still, for the purposes of 
this computation, we count them on the side of the South. 
Yet how significant the comparison which this computa- 
tion furnishes I Throwing the foreign born (adopted 
citizens, mostly residents of the North) out of the reckoning*, 
and the record stands, — Northern authors four hundred and 
three; Southern, eighty-seven — a difference of three hundred 
and sixteen in favor of the North ! And this, probably, 
indicates very fairly the relative intellectual activity'- of 
the two sections. 

We accept the facts gleaned from Duyckinck's work as 
a basis, simply, of our estimate : not as being absolutely 
accurate in tliemselves, though they are doubtless relia- 
ble in the main, and certainly as fair for the South as 
they are for the North. We might dissent from the judg- 
ment of the compiler in reference to the propriety of 
apnlying the ter-r. "literature" to much that his compila- 



402 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

tion contains ; but as tastes have proverbially differed 
from the days of the venerable dame who kissed her cow 
— not to extend our researches into the condition of things 
anterior to that interesting event — we will not insist upon 
Qur view of the matter, but take it for granted that he has 
disentombed from forgotten reviews, newspapers, pamph- 
lets, and posters, a fair relative proportion of " authors" 
for both North and South, for which " ximerican Litera- 
ture" is unquestionably under infinite obligations to him I 

Griswold's " Poets and Poetry of America" and Thomas 
Buchanan Read's " Female Poets of America" furnish evi- 
dence, equally conclusive, of the benumbing influence of 
slavery upon the intellect of a country. Of course, these 
compilers say nothing about Slavery, and probably never 
thought of it in connection with their respective works, 
but none the less significant on that account is the testi- 
mony of the fads which they give. From the last edition 
of Griswold's compilation, (^which contains the names of 
none of our female writers, he having included them in a 
separate volume) we find the names of one hundred and 
forty-one writers of verse : of these oTie was foreign-born, 
seventeen natives of the slaveholding, and one hundred and 
twenty-three of the non-slaveholding States. Of our female 
poets, whose nativity is given by Mr. Read, eleven are 
natives of the South ; and seventy-three of the North I These 
simple arithmetical figures are God's eternal Scripture 
against the folly and madness of Slavery, and need no aid 
of rhetoric to give emphasis to the startling eloquence of 
th*^ir revelations. 

But, after all, literature is not to be estimated by cubic 



SOUTHERN .ITERATURE. 403 

feet or pounds averdupois, nor measured by the bushel or 
the yardstick. Quality, rather than quantity, is the true 
standard of estimation. The fact, however, matters little 
for our present purpose ; for the South, we are sorry to 
say, is as much behind the North in the former as in the 
latter. We do not forget the names of Gayarre, Benton, 
Simms, and other eminent citizens of the Slave States, 
who have by their contributions to American letters con- 
ferred honor upon themselves and upon our common coun- 
try, when we affirm, that those among our authors who 
enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation, are, with a few honor- 
able exceptions, natives of the Free North ; and that the 
names which most brilliantly illustrate our literature, in 
its every department, are those which have grown into 
greatness under the nurturing influence of free institu- 
tions. " Comparisons are odious," it is said ; and we will 
not, unnecessarily, render them more so, in the present 
instance, by contrasting, name by name, the literary men 
of the South with the literary men of the North. We do 
not depreciate the former, nor overestimate the latter. 
But let us ask, whence come our geographers, our astron- 
omers, our chemists, our meteorologists, our ethnologists, 
and others, who have made their names illustrious in the 
domain of the Natural Sciences ? Not from the Slave 
States, certainly. In the Literature of Law, the South 
can furnish no name that can claim peership with those of 
Story and of Kent ; in History, none that tower up to the 
altitude of Bancroft, Prescott, Hildreth, Motley and Wash- 
ington Irving ; in Theology, none that can challenge 
lavorablc comparison with those of Edwards. Dwight, 



404 SOUTHERN L-TERATURE. 

Channing, Taylor, Bushnell, Tyler and Wayland in t lo- 
tion, none that take ro.nk with Cooper, and Mrs. Stowc ; 
and but few that may do so with even the second class 
novelists of the North ;* in Poetry, none that can command 
position w^ith Bryant, Halleck, and Percival, with Whit- 
tier, Longfellow, and Lowell, with Willis, Stoddard and 
Taylor, with Holmes, Saxe, and Burleigh ; and — we might 
add twenty other Northern names before we found their 
Southern peer, with the exception of poor Poe, who, with- 
in a narrow range of subjects, showed himself a poet 
of consummate art, and occupies a sort of debatable 
ground between our first and second-class writers. 

We might extend this comparison to our writers in 
every department of letters, from the compiler of school- 
books to the author of the most profound ethical treatise, 
and with precisely the same result. But we forbear. 
The task is distasteful to our State pride, and would have 
been entirely avoided had not a higher principle urged us 
to its performance. It remains for us now to enquire, 

What has produced this literary pauperism of the South ? 
One single word, most pregnant in its terrible meanings, 
answers the question. That word is — Slavery ! But we 
have been so long accustomed to the ugly thing itsch^, 
and have become so familiar with its no less ugly IVuits, 
that the common mind fails to apprehend the connection 
between the one, as cause, and the other as effect ; and 



* We Southrons all glory in the literary reputation of Mr. Simms ; 
yet we must confess his inferiority to Cooper, and prejudice alone 
v.-ill refuse to admit, that, while in the art of the novelist he is tho 
superior of Mrs. Stowe in genius he must take position belojv hci. 



SOUTH RRN LITERATURE. i05 

it tJiercfurc Ijcco/nos necessary to give a more detailed 
answer to our interrogatory. 

Obviously, then, the conditions requisite to a flourish- 
ing literature arc wanting at the South. These are — 

I. Eeaders. The people of the South are not a reading 
people. Many of the adult population never learned to 
read ; still more, do not care to read. We have been im- 
pressed, during a temporary sojourn in the North, with 
the difference between the middle and laboring classes in 
the Free States, and the same classes in the Slave States, 
in this respect. Passing along the great routes of travel 
in the former, or taking our scat in the comfurtable cars 
that pass up and down the avenues of our great commer- 
cial metropolis, we have not failed to contrast the employ- 
ment of our fellow-passengers with that which occupies 
the attention of tlio corresponding classes on our various 
Southern routes of travel. In the one case, a large pro- 
portion of the passengers seem intent upon mastering the 
contents of the newspaper, or some recently published 
book. The merchant, the mechanic, the artizan, the pro- 
fessional man, and even the common laborer, going to or 
returning from their daily avocations, are busy with their 
morning or evening paper, or engaged in an intelligent 
discussion of some topic of public interest. This is their 
leisure hour, and it is given to the acquisition of such in- 
formation as may be of immediate or ultimate use, or to 
the cultivation of a taste for elegant literature. In the 
other case, newspapers and books seem generally ignored, 
and noisy discussions of village and State politics, \he 
tobacco and cotton crops, Clibusterism in Cuba, Nicaragua, 



406 SOUTIIEIIN LITERATURE. 

or Sonora, the price of negroes generally, and especially 
of "fine-looking wenches," the beauties of lynch-law, the 
delights of horse-racing, the excitement of street fights 
with bowie-knives and revolvers, the "manifest destiny" 
theory that justifies the stealing of all territory contigu- 
ous to our own, and kindred topics, constitute the warp 
and woof of conversation. All this is on a level with the 
general intelligence of the Slave States. It is true, thcsa 
States have their educated men, — the majority of whom 
owe their literary culture to the colleges of the North. 
Not that there are no Southern colleges — for there are in- 
stitutions, so called, in a majority of the Slave States. — 
Some of them, too, are not deficient in tlie appointments 
requisite to our higher educational institutions ; but as a 
general thing, Southern colleges arc colleges only in name, 
and will scarcely take rank with a third-rate Northern 
academy, while our academies, with a few exceptions, are 
immeasurably inferior to the public schools of New-York, 
Philadelphia, and Boston. The truth is, there is a vast 
inert mass of stupidity and ignorance, too dense for indi- 
vidual effort to enlighten or remove, in all communities 
cursed with the institution of slavery. Disguise the un- 
welcome truth as we may, slavery is the parent of igno- 
rance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and 
of vices, and every one of these is inevitably hostile to 
literary culture. The masses, if they think of literature 
at all, think of it only as a costly luxury, to be monopo- 
lized by the few. 

The pro] ortioi: of white adults over twenty years of age, 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 4U7 

in each State, who cannot read and write, to the uhoU 
white population, is as follows : 



Connecticut, 


1 to 


every 


5G3 


Lonisiana, 


1 to 


ever} 


38 J 


Vermont, 




u 


473 


Maryland 




(( 


27 


N. Hampshire, 




« 


310 


Mississippi, 




ii 


20 


^Massachusetts, 




•'< 


1C6 


Delaware, 




u 


18 


Maine, 




(( 


108 


South Carolina, 




(( 


17 


Michigan, 




u 


97 


Missouri, 




1, 


\C, 


Rhode Island, 




C( 


67 


Alaharaa, 




(< 


15 


New Jersey, 




>• 


58 


Kentucky, 




(( 


134 


New York, 




u 


56 


Georgia, 




<( 


13 


Pennsylvania. 




u 


50 


Virginia, 




t( 


12i 


Ohio, ' 




(l 


43 


Arkansas, 




u 


IH 


Indiana, 




(( 


18 


Tennessee, 




i: 


11 


Illinois, 




" 


17 


North Carolina, 




(t 


7 



In this table, Illinois and Indiana are the onl}- Frcp 
States which, in point of education, arc surpassed by any 
of the Slave States ; and this disgraceful fact is owing, 
principally, to the influx of foreigners, and to immigrants 
from the Slave States. New-York, Rhode Island, and 
Pennsylvania have also a large foreign element in their 
population, that swells very considerably this percent- 
age of ignorance. For instance, New-Y"ork shows, by 
the last census, a population of 98,722 who cannot read 
and write, and of this number 68,052 are foreigners ; 
Rhode Island, 3,607, of whom 2,359 are foreigners ; Penn- 
sylvania, 76,272, of whom 24,989 are foreigners. On the 
other hand, the ignorance of the Slave States is princi- 
pally natii't ignorance, but comparatively few emigrants 
from Europe seeking a home upon a soil cursed witii "the 
peculiar institution.'' North Carolina has a foreign popu- 



408 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

iation of only 340, South Carolina only 104, Arkansas only 
27, Tennessee only 505, and Virginia only 1,1 3T, who can- 
not read and write ; while the aggregate of native igno- 
rance in these five States (exclusive of the slaves, who are 
debarred all education by law) is 2t8,948 I No longer ago 
than 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky, in his message 
to the Legislature of that State, de«.lared that " by the 
computation of those most familiar with the subject, one- 
third of ike adult population of the State are unable to write 
their names ;" and Governor Campbell, of Virginia, reported 
to the Legislature, that "from the returns of ninety-eight 
clerks, it appeared that of 4,614 applications for marriage 
licenses in 183 1, no less than 1,041 were made by men 
unable to write." 

In the Slave States the proportion of free white children 
between the ages of five, and twenty, who are found at 
any school or college, is not quite one-fifth of the whole ; 
in the Free States, the proportion is more than three-fifths. 

We could fill our pages with facts like these to an 
almost indefinite extent, but it cannot be necessary. No 
truth is more demonstrable, nay, no truth has been more 
abundantly demonstrated, than this : that Slavery is hos- 
tile to general education ; its strength, its very life, is in 
the ignorance and stolidity of the masses ; it naturally 
and necessarily represses general literary culture. To 
talk, therefore, of the " creation of a purely Southern 
Literature," without readers to demand, or writers to pro- 
duce it, is the mere babble of idiocy. 

II. Another thing essential to the creation of a litera- 
ture is Mental Freedom. How much of that is to be found 



» SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 409 

in the region of Slavery ? We will not say that there is 
Twne; but if it exists, it exists as the outlawed antagonist 
of human chattelhood. He who believes that the despo- 
tism of the accursed institution expends its malignant 
forces upon the slave, leaving intact the white and (so called) 
free population, ia the victim of a most monstrous delu- 
sion. One end of the yoke that bows the African to the 
duit, presses heavily upon the neck of his Anglo-Saxon 
master. The entire mind of the South either stultifies 
itself into acquiescence with Slavery, succumbs to its 
authority, or chafes in indignant protest against its 
monstrous pretensions and outrageous usurpations. A 
free press is an institution almost unknown at the South. 
Free speech is considered as treason against slavery : 
and when people dare neither speak nor print their 
thoughts, free thought itself is well nigh extinguished. 
All that can be said in defence of human bondage, may be 
spoken freely ; but question either its morality or its 
policy, and the terrors of lynch law are at once invoked to 
put down the pestilent heresy. The legislation of the 
Slave States for the suppression of the freedom of speech 
and the press, is disgraceful and cowardly to the last 
degree, and can find its parallel only in the meanest and 
bloodiest despotisms of the Old World. No institution 
that could bear the light would thus sncakiugly seek to 
burrow itself in utter darkness. Look, too, at the mobbings, 
lyuchings, robberies, social and political proscriptions, 
and all manner of nameless outrages, to which men in tho 
South have been subjected, simply upon the suspicion that 

they were the enemies of Slavery. We could fill page 

18 



410 SOUTHERN I-1TERaTUP.E. 

after page of this volume with the recoiti of such atroci- 
ties. But a simple reference to them is enough. Our 
countrymen have not yet forgotten why John C. Under- 
wood was, but a few months since, banished from his 
home in Virginia, and the accomplished Hedreck driven 
from his College professorship in North Carolina. They 
believed Slavery inimical to the best interest of the South, 
and for daring to give expression to this belief in mode- 
rate yet manly language, they were ostracised by the 
despotic Slave Power, and compelled to seek a refuge 
from its vengeance in States where the principles of free- 
dom are better understood. Pending the last Presiden- 
tial election, there were thousands, nay, tens of thousands 
of voters in the Slave States, who desired to give their 
suffrages for the Republican nominee, John C. Fremont; 
himself a Southron, but a non-slaveholder. The Consti- 
tution of tlie United States guaranteed to these men an 
expression of their preference at the ballot-box. But were 
they permitted such an expression? Not at all. They 
were denounced, threatened, overawed, by the Slave 
Power — and it is not too much to say that there was 
really no Constitutional election, — that is, no such free ex- 
pression of political preferences as the Constitution aims 
to secure — in a majority of the Slave States. 

From a multiplicity of facts like these, the inference is 
unavoidable, that Slavery tolerates no freedom of the 
press — no freedom of speech — no freedom of opinion. To 
expect that a whole-souled, manly literature can flourish 
under such o jnditions, is as absurd as it would be to look 
for health amid the pestilential vapors of a dungeon, or 



SOUTHERN litp:p.ature. 411 

for the continuance of animal life wit. out the aid of 
oxygen. 

III. Mental activity — force — enterprise — are requisite 
to the creation of literature. Slavery tends to sluf>'n-ish. 
ness — imbecility — inertia. Where free thought is trea 
son, the masses will not long take the trouble of thinking 
at all. Desuetude begets 'ncompctence — the dart-not soon 
becomes the cannot. The mind thus enslaved, necessarily 
loses its interest in the processes of other minds ; and its 
tendency is to sink down into absolute stolidity or sot- 
tishness. Our remarks find melancholy confirmation in 
the abject servilism in which multitudes of the non-slave- 
holding whites of tlie South are involved. In them, 
ambition, pride, self-respect, hope, seem alike extinct. 
Their slaveholding fellows are, in some respects, in a still 
more unhappy condition — ^helpless, nerveless, ignorant, 
selfish ; yet vain-glorious, self-sufficient and brutal. Are 
these the chosen architects who are expected to build up 
" a purely Southern literature ?" 

The truth is, slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, 
whatever it touches. No interest of society escapes the 
influence of its clinging curse. It makes Southern religion 
a stench in the nostrils of Christendom — it makes Southern 
politics a libel upon all the principles of Ecpublicanism — 
it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honora 
ble profession of letters. Than the better class of South- 
ern authors tliemselves, none will feel more keenly the 
truth of our remarks. They write books, but can fihd for 
them neither publishers nor remunerative sales at the 
South The executors of Calhoun seek, for his works, a 



412 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

Northern publisher. Benton writes history and prepares 
voluminous compilations, which are given to the world 
through a Northern publisher. Simms writes novels and 
poems, and they are scattered abroad from the presses of 
a. Northern publisher. Eighty per cent, of all the copies 
sold are probably bought by Northern readers. 

When will Southern authors understand their own in- 
terests ? When will the South, as a whole, abandoning 
its present suicidal policy, enter upon that career of pros- 
perity, greatness, and true renown, to which God by his 
word and his providences, is calling it ? "If thou take 
away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth 
of the finger and speaking vanity ; and if thou draw out 
thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul ; then 
shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the 
noonday : And the Lord shall guide thee continually and 
satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones ; and 
thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of 
water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of 
thee shall build the old waste places ; thou shalt raise up 
the foundations of many generations ; and thou shalt be 
called, The repairer of the breach. The restorer of paths to 
dwell in." 

Our limits, not our materials, are exhausted. We would 
gladly say more, but can only, in conclusion, add as the 
result of our investigations in this department of our sub- 
ject, ih^it Literature and Liberty are inseparaUe ; the one can 
never have a vigorous existence without being wedd^yX to the other. 



CONCLUSION. 413 

Our work is done. It is the voice of the non-sl a vehol cl- 
ing whites of tho South, through one identified with them 
by interest, by feeling, by position. That voice, by whom- 
soever spoken, must yet be heard and heeded. The time 
hastens — the doom of slavery is written — the redemption 
of the South draws nigh. 

In taking leave of our readers, we know not how we 
can give more forcible expression to our thoughts and in- 
tentions than by saying that, in concert with the intelligent 
free voters of the North, we, the non-slaveholding whites 
of the South, expect to elevate John C. Fremont, Cassius 
M. Clay, James G. Birney, or some other Southern non- 
slaveholder, to the Presidency in 1860 ; and that the pa- 
triot thus elevated to that dignified station will, through 
our cordial co-operation, be succeeded by William H. Sew- 
ARr, Charles Su^iner, John McLean, or some other non- 
slaveholder of the North ; — and furthermore, that if, in 
these or in any other similar cases, the oligarchs do not 
quietly submit to the will of a constitutional majority of 
the people, as expressed at the ballot-box, the first battle 
between freedom and slavery will be fought at home — and 
may God defend the right I 



THE END. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery, 155. 

Achenwall, 29. 

A'lams, John Quincy, 239. 

Agriculture and otlicr out-door pursuits, number of free white male 

Southrons engaged in, 208. 
Af^a-iculUiral Products. — See Corn, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, Hay, 

Cotton, Tobacco, &c. &c. 
Animals Slaughtered, Value of, 71. 
Anti-slavery Letters from native Southrons, 374. 
Area of the several States and Territories. 143. 
Aristotle, 25G. 
Attorneys-General, 312. 
Baltimore, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 
Baltimore, Past, Prejjent, and Future, 352. 
Baltimore, Why this Work was not published there, 360. 
Bancroft, George, 384. 
Bank Capital of the several States, 286. 
Banks, James, 384. 
Baptist Testimony, 263. 
Barley, 36. 

Barnes, Rev. Albert, 259. 
Beans and Peas, 37. 
Beattie, James, 251. 
Beeswax and Honey, 64. 
Benton, Thomas H., 19, 105, 167, 207. 
Bible Testimony, 275— Bible Cause Contributions, 295. 
Birney, James G., 214, 413. 
Blackstone, Sir William, 248. 
Blair, Francis P., 105, 167, 213. 
Boiling, Philip A., 211. 
Book Making in America, 392. 
Booth, Abraham, 268. 
Boston, Letter from the Mayor of, 338, 
Botts, John M., 167. 
Brisbane, Rev. Mr., 263. 
Brissot, 253. 

Brooklyn, Letter from the Mayor of, 339 
Brougham, Lord, 250. 
Browne, R. K., 322. 
Buchanan, James, 170. 
Buckwheat, 37. 

Bufialo, Letter from the Mayor of, 344. 
BuflTon, 253. 
Burke, Edmund, 250, 
Butlo', Bishop, 261. 



416 GENERAL INDEX. 

Butter and Cheese, 64. 

Cameron, Paul C, 49, 55. 

Canals, miles of, in the several StatcSj 286 

Cane, Sugar, 53, C5. 

Cortwriglit, Dr., of New-Orleans, 301. 

Catholic Testimony, 271. 

Chandler, Mr., of Virginia, 211. 

Charleston, Letter from the Mayor of, 340. 

Chicago, Letter from, 342. 

Churches, Value of, in the several States, 294 

Cicero, 254. 

Cincinnati, Letter A-om the Mayor of, 340. 

Cities, nine Free and nine Slave, 347. 

Clarke, Dr. Adam, 2G0. 

Clarke, Judge, of Mississippi, 223. 

Clay, Henry, 205. 

Clay, Cassius M., 20G, 301, 413. 

Clav, C. C, 56. 

Clinton, DeWitt, 242. 

Clover and Grass Seed, 37. 

Coke, Sir Edward, 249. 

Colonization Movements, 183. 

Colonization Cause Contributions, 296. 

Commercial Cities — Southern Commerce, 33 

Comparison between the Free and the Slav( iitates, 1 1 

Corn, 35, 69. 

Cotton, 53, 65. 

Cowper, William, 247. 

Cragin, A. H., 190. 

Curran, John Philpot, 250. 

Curtis, Mr., of Virginia, 101. 

Darien (Georgia) Resolutions, 231. 

Davis, Henry Winter, 167. 

Deaths in the several States in 1850, 297. 

DeBow, J. D. B., 30, 50, 83. 

Dublin University Magazine, 251. 

Emigration to Liberia, 183. 

Episcopal Testimony, 261. 

Etheridge, Emerson, 167, 173. 

Exi)enditure3 of the several States, 80. 

Exports, 283. 

Facts and Arguments by the Wayside, 360. 

Farms, Cash Value of, 71. 

Faulkner, Charles James, 98, 175. 

Flax, 62— Flaxseed, 38. 

Fortescue, Sir John, 249. 

Fox, Charles James, 246. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 235. 

Free Figures and Slave, 281. 

Free White Agriculturalists in the Slave States, 208. 



GENERAL INDEX. 411 



Freedom and fe.avcry at the Fair, 32-'J. 

Freedom in the South, Progress of, 367. 

Fremont, Jolm Charles, 170, 212, 410, 41 J. 

Gaston, Judge, of North Carolina, 220. 

Garden Products, Value of, 38 

Goethe, 254. 

Goodloe, Daniel R., 112. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 384. 

Graham, William H., 167. 

Graves, Calvin, 1G7. 

Greeley, Horace, 364. 

Grotius, 253. 

Hall, Dr. James, 182. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 237. 

Hammond, Gov., 165, 301. 

Hampden, John, 249. 

Harper Brothers, 394. 

Harrington, James, 249. 

Hay, 63. 

Hedrick, B. S., Prof., 305, 410. 

Hemp, 53, 02. 

Henry, Patrick, 84, 200. 

Hildreth, Richard, 384. 

Hoffman, H.^V., 167. 

Honey, 64. 

Hops, 62. 

Ilorslcy, Bishop, 261. 

How Slavery can be Aholished, 123. 

Hunt, Freeman, 349. 

Hurlbut, V/illiam Henry, 229, 316. 

Illiterate Poor Whites of the South, 370. 

Illiterate White Adults, 201, 407 

Imports, 283. 

Indian Corn, 35, 69. 

Inhabitants to the Square Mile, 143. 

Inventions, New, Patents issued on, in 1850, 294. 

Iredell, Judge, 210. 

Jay, John, Judge, 237. 

Jay, John, Esq., 261. 

Jay, William, 239. 

Jeflerson, Thomas, 195, 222. 

Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 248. 

Kansas, iMd for, 318. 

Kemp, Henry, 273. 

Lactantius, 255. 

Lafayette, Gen., 252—0. Lafayette, 262. 

Lawrence, Abbott and Amos, 106. 

Leigh, Mr., of Virginia, 210. 

Loo X., 255. 

Liberia, Emigration to. 1S3. 



418 GENERAL INDEX- 

Libraries Other than Private, 289. 

Live Stock, Value of, 71. 

Locke, John, 246. 

Louis X., 253. 

Louisville, Letter from the Mayor of, 341. 

Luther, Martin, 25 i. 

McDowell, Gov., 209. 

McLane, of Delaware, 215. 

Macfarland, Wm. H., 167. 

Macknight, James, D.D., 251. 

Madison, James, 82, 199. 

xMansfield, Lord, 246. 

Manufactures, Products of, 284. 

Maple Sugar, 63. 

Martin, Luther, 216. 

Marshall, Humphrey, 167 

Marshall, Thomas, 211. 

Mason, James M., 223. 

Mason, John W,, 384. 

Mason, Col., of Virginia, 208. 

Massachusetts and North Carolina, 14- 

Maury, M. F., 213. 

Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 221. 

i\rethodist Testimony, 269. 

M'.iitia Force of the Several States, 286. 

^hller, H. W., 167. 

vliller, Prof, of Glasgow, 251. 

Milton, John, 248. 

Missionary Cause Contributions, 296. 

Monroe, James, 200. 

IMontesquieu, 252. 

Moore, Mr., of Virginia, 101. 

Morehead, John M., 167. 

National Political Power of the Several States, 292. 

Natives of the Slave States in the Free States, and Natives of li» 

Free States in the Slave States, 304. 
New-Bedford, Letter from the Mayor of, 345. 
New-Qrleans, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 
Newspapers and Periodicals, 290. 
New-York and Virginia, 12. 
New- York and North Carolina, 325. 
New- York City, Letter from the Mayor o/^ 336. 
Norfolk, Letter from, 344. 

North American and United States Gazette, 87, 111, 114. 
North Carolina and Massachusetts, 14. 
North Carolina and New-York 325. 
Northern Testimony, 235. 
Nott, J. C, Dr. 302, 308. 
Oats, 35, 69. 
Oglethorpe, Gen., 230. 



geni:bal 'ndex. 41^ 

Orchard Products, Value of, 38. 

Patents Issued on New Inventions, 294. 

Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 17. 

Perry, B. F., 229. 

Pettyjohn, Charles, 363. 

Philadelphia, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 

Pinkney, William, 210, 215. 

Pitt, William, 2-lG. 

Plato, 256. 

Polybius, 256. 

Pope Gregory XVI., 271. 

Pope Leo X., 255. 

Popular Vote for President in 1856, 293. 

Population of the Several States, 144. 

Porteus, Bishop, 261. 

Postmasters-General, 311. 

Post Office Statistics, 287. 

Potatoes, 36, 69. 

Powell, Mr., of Virginia, 102. 

Precepts and Sayings of the Old Testament, 276. 

Precepts and Sayings of the New Testament, 277. 

Presbyterian Testimony, 259. 

Presidents of the United States, 307. 

Presidential Elections in the U. S. from 1706 to 1856. 317 

Preston, Mr., of Virginia, 212. 

Price, Dr., of London, 248. 

Providence, Letter from the Mayor of, 343. 

Railroads, Miles of, in the Several States, 285. 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 201. 

Randolph, Thomas M., 202. 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 202. 

Randolph, Peyton, 204. 

Randolph, Edmund, 204. 

Raynal, Tlie Abbe, 273. 

Raynor, Kenneth, 167, 169. 

Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Bushel-Measure Pro- 
ducts, 39-40. 

Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Pound-Measure Pre 
ducts, 65. 

Recapitulation of the Value of Farms and Domestic Animals, 72. 

Real and Personal Proj^erty, 80. 

Reid, Mr., of Georgia, 233. 

Revenue of the Several States, 80. 

Rice, 53, 65. 

Richmond, Letter from, 342. 

Ritchie, Thomas, 02, 105. 

Rives, Mr., of Virginia, 101, 101. 

Rousseau, 253. 

Ruflin, Judge, of North Carolinn, 225. 

Rye, 36, G'O, 2. 



420 GENERAL INDEX. 

Savannah, Letter from the Mayor of, 346. 

Schools, Public, 288. 

Scott, Thomas, (Commentator), 260. 

Secretaries of State. 309. 

Secretaries of the Interior, 312. 

Secretaries of the Treasury, 313. 

Secretaries of War, 314. 

Secretaries of the Navy, 315. 

Shakspeare, 247. 

Slaveholders, Number of, in the United States, 146. 

Slaves, Value of, at S400 per head, 306. 

Slavery, Legislative Acts against, 3G1. 

Slavery Thoughtful— Signs of Contrition, 865. 

Smith, Gerrit, 318. 

Socrates, 256. 

South Carolina and Pcnnsylvauia, 17. 

Southern Literature, 383. 

Southern Testimony against Slavery, 183. 

Speakers of the House of Representatives, 310. 

St. Louis, Letter from the Mavor of, SCO. 

Stanly, Edward, 1G7. 

States, the Several, when First Settled, 321-322. 

Statistics, Science of, 29, 30. 

Stuart, A. IL n., 1G7. 

Summers, Mr., of Virginia, 212. 

Supreme Court, Judges of, 303. 

Tarver, M., 164. 

Taylor, Wm. C, L.L.D., 29. 

Territories, the, Area and Population of, 145. 

Testimony of the Nations, 245. 

Testimony of the Churches, 258. 

Tobacco, 53, 62, 78. 

Tonnage of the Several States, 283. 

Tract Cause Contributions, 295. 

Underwood, John C, 410. 

Virginia and New-York, 12. 

Votes cast for President in 1856, 293. [293. 

Votes, Classification of, Polled at the Five Points Precinct in 1S58, 

Walker, Robert J., 105. 

Warren, Joseph, Gen., 242. 

Washinilton, George, Gen., 193. 

Wayland, Francis, D.D., 264. 

Wealth of the Several States, 80. 

Webster, Daniel, 240. 

Webster, Noah, 117, 211, 384. 

Wesley, John, Rev., 209. 

Weston, George M., 164. 

Wheat, 85, 69, 78. 

Why tiie North has surpass 3d the South. 

Wise llenrv A., 13, 90, 102. 




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